We had a great idea for the ending of Scream 3. Sidney (Neve Campbell), after all (and we do mean all) of her pals are killed off, gets cornered in a movie projection room by the latest incarnation of the Ghostface Killer. Just as he’s about to do her in, he takes off his mask, revealing…director Wes Craven. “Who are you?” asks a confused Sidney. “Oh, come off it, Neve,” says Wes with a cruel smile, and he stabs her multiple times as the film pops and burns on the spool, ending in a white-out with no closing credits. Now that would’ve been a perfect send-off for Craven’s beyond-meta horror series, but instead we got this lame and unimaginative rush job featuring a plot that couldn’t exist at all unless every character owned a cell phone that always had perfect reception no matter where they are (really, this thing should’ve been called Cell Phone, and the sound designers probably had literal ringing in their ears for weeks after this gig wrapped). Only Parker Posey offers anything fresh (and funny) as a spoiled movie star (the bit where she just kind of leaps into the arms of her bodyguard is priceless), with Lance Henriksen giving one of his laziest performances ever as a sleazy movie director named “John Milton” (sheesh); meanwhile, all of the returning players seem like they’re over it. Followed eleven years later by Scream 4, and no one really cared.
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New On Netflix: Scream 3