When people list off classic horror films, there’s a good chance Scream will be named. There’s a chance you’ll hear Scream 2 mentioned as well. But one film that never gets the love it deserves is Scream 3.
This is one of the wonkiest, bonkiest, wildest, and yes, even smartest horror movies ever made. And you absolutely need to watch it.
The film takes the franchise to Los Angeles and centers around the production of Stab 3. But another copycat killer is on the loose and is killing all the actors who play the real-life survivors from Woodsboro. But once our hero trio – Gale Weathers, Sidney Prescott, and Dewey Riley – realize what’s happening, they all find themselves arriving on-set, throwing the killer’s plan into overdrive.
From the start, Scream 3 was a looming disaster. As The Independent reports, nobody really wanted to be there. Neve Campbell had renegotiated her contract to only be on-set for 20 days. Writer Kevin Williamson was busy doing other things, so the script was given to newcomer Ehren Kruger instead. And Wes Craven himself really didn’t want to make a third movie and only did so on the condition that the studio would greenlight his passion project, Music of the Heart.
From there, the rest of the cast was filled out with a hodgepodge of actors who seemingly didn’t belong in the same movie together. From anti-vax Playboy Bunny Jenny McCarthy, to indie it-girl Parkey Posey, and even Patrick Dempsey before his career-defining role on Grey’s Anatomy, Scream 3’s casting can only be described as chaotic. But, despite everything going wrong…somehow the movie came out ohhhh so right.
Scream 3 got even more meta
Everyone knows the Scream franchise is famous for being meta. While being slashers themselves, they constantly critique and poke fun at the genre. But Scream 3 went bigger, critiquing Hollywood as a whole.
In fact, Scream 3 makes numerous jokes about how Hollywood will keep pumping out sequels even if nobody wants to be in them anymore (clearly referencing itself in the process). It also makes numerous (and I mean numerous) references to the way Hollywood preys on young women. In recent years, this has become an even more biting critique since the film was produced by Dimension under its tyrant, Harvey Weinstein.
In one absolutely scene-stealing cameo, Carrie Fisher plays a lowly studio employee…who happens to look almost identical to Carrie Fisher. “I was up for Princess Leia,” she says. “I was this close. So, who gets it? The one who sleeps with George Lucas.” And that’s just one of many references the film makes to how women are treated in the entertainment industry.
Plus, knowing what we all know now about how Weinstein ran his empire, lines like that don’t just feel like cheap comedy. They feel like Scream 3 was trying to tell us the reality of Hollywood way before anyone cared.
Scream 3's sloppiness is its strength
Yes, the tonal shifts in Scream 3 are a lot, and it doesn’t really feel like the other Scream movies as it bounces between horror, comedy, and scathing critiques of Hollywood with abandon. But at the same time, that’s part of what makes it great. Take the Courteney Cox-Parkey Posey duo, for example. In the film, Posey plays actress Jennifer Jolie, who is playing Gale Weathers in Stab 3.
After the real Gale turns up looking for a juicy story, the duo becomes a hilarious pair of sleuths, with Posey using her comedic strengths to really bring life to the movie. Somehow, in the middle of a slasher film, Scream 3 developed its own little buddy cop storyline. No other horror movie has ever had the balls to incorporate so much joy and camp into its plot, and that’s something Scream 3 needs to be praised for.
The film’s LA setting was also wild, and made Scream 3 feel so much larger than the other movies in the franchise...until Scream VI brought Ghostface to the Big Apple almost 15 years later. It’s big, it’s wild, and the sets are completely different from where we’ve seen the Scream gang before. It all just came together like a puzzle made of pieces that shouldn’t fit…but somehow did.
Why you need to watch Scream 3
Scream 3 is a must-watch because it’s literally Scream to the max. The franchise is known for being meta, but Scream 3 took it to another level, and instead of self-referencing the slasher genre, it ended up critiquing Hollywood as a whole, and even its own troubled production. It’s the ultimate middle finger to the darker side of the entertainment industry.
Plus, it has a weird but brilliant cast, some seriously funny moments, and a lot of fantastic sets – from the Hollywood backlots to the mansions of infamous studio moguls. If you want to watch a Scream film you probably haven't seen before (or have maybe only seen once years ago), it’s time to sit down and revisit one of the campiest, smartest, and most misunderstood entries in horror history.