Scream 3

Firmly in the realm of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! nonsense, Scream 3 sees the series slide further into a bloodless, but still entertaining, state of self-parody. Director Wes Craven's third entry, working from a script by Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction), allows the characters to drift a little further away from each other before it finds a homicidal cause to reunite them. Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott lives in picturesque seclusion, fielding crisis calls from victims of domestic abuse. David Arquette's Deputy Dewey, now a little steadier on his feet, works in Los Angeles as a technical consultant on Stab, the schlocky horror franchise based on the events of this film series. Courteney Cox's indefatigable Gale Weathers is also out and about in Tinseltown, meeting the actress who portrays her on the silver screen - Parker Posey's hare-brained Jennifer Jolie - and investigating the secret Hollywood history of Sidney's dead mother, Maureen. 

Seemingly barred from exploring lacerating violence, this sequel leans closer to the strange and supernatural than any previous Scream. Sidney is visited in her dreams by her murdered parent, a restless, rotting spectre who smears her congealed blood all over her daughter's beautiful bay window. This film's Ghostface - essentially an abandoned child in the midst of violent hissy fit - appears then disappears with the teleporting logic of a Jason Voorhees. He is also, similarly, immune to small arms fire. This turbo-charged killer has access to a portable voice changer that allows him to sample and remix speech from any source, enabling all sorts of simulated betrayal. The show business setting, broad enough to encompass other damned citizens of the Weinstein cinematic universe, vacillates between the comedy observed in unacknowledged narcissism and, in its bleaker moments, hints at the yawning chasm within the powerful men who take full advantage of young, struggling actresses. In this sense Scream 3 does provide a thematic connection to the first film, but the crimes of these sexually abusive men are crowded out by a final act reveal that dares to rewrite established text.