Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Scream 3 Blu-ray Movie Review

Deja voodoo.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 25, 2011

Sooner or later, attrition and the law of diminishing returns catch up with most movie franchises. Everything from Star Wars to Halloween to the old Road pictures with Hope and Crosby have seen their fortunes decline with repeated, and often repetitive, trips to the well. And so it probably shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Scream 3 is probably the weakest of the triptych involving hapless Sidney Prescott, who never seems quite able to escape from the clutches of various baddies who want to don the iconic Ghostface disguise and then go around dicing and slicing everyone with whom they come into contact. The first two Scream outings were bracing, funny and very inventive. The first Scream was a wonderful send-up of the horror genre, simultaneously exploiting and making fun of just about every cliché the idiom has offered up over the course of cinematic history. Scream 2 took the basic idea and injected a fitting “meta” structure where the release of Stab, a film about the events depicted in the first Scream, set a whole new wave of terror into motion. Scream 3 wants to have its “meta” cake and eat it, too, starting off in the hallowed highways and byways of a densely clogged Hollywood, as it deals with the drama surrounding the filming and release of the newest Stab entry, Stab 3. Confused yet? Art mirroring life (and death, as I noted in my review of Scream 2) is certainly nothing new, and if Scream brought a bit of Pirandello to the slasher film, it certainly wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last, movie to turn the camera back on itself and play it all as if it were unfolding before a funhouse mirror.

"Look, I'm only going to ask you this one more time: what's your favorite scary movie?"

Scream 3 was the only film in the original triptych not to have been written by Kevin Williamson, and Williamson’s brilliantly acerbic take on the slasher genre is somewhat missed in this outing. Screenwriter Ehren Kruger didn’t really have that deep of a resumé when he came on board to write the third Scream film, with Arlington Road his only major film of note up to that time. (Kruger went on to write the American adaptations of the Japanese Ring films, as well as two of the Transformer films, and he also contributed a nicely spry screenplay to Terry Gilliam’s radical reimagining of The Brothers Grimm). Kruger may not have Williamson’s brisk ear for dialogue, not to mention the many absurd conventions of the horror film, but he manages a decently well balanced outing that gives us at least some relatively hearty laugh lines interspersed with moments of palpable fear.

The problem with Scream 3, though, is simply that its self-reflexive take on the horror idiom has already been pretty much thoroughly mined in the first two Scream films, and there’s simply not that much left to skewer. The best elements here are frankly not the Ghostface sequences, but instead the often very funny moments with the Stab 3 cast and crew, including an absolutely hilarious Parker Posey “as” Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox). The interplay between the “real life” (i.e., Scream) characters and their Stab counterparts is very well handled and gives the film most of its comedic edge.

Too much of Scream 3, though, seems like an unintended parody of itself, a slightly warmed over amalgamation of misdirection, jump cuts and booming sound cues that we’ve already seen and heard just a few too many times. Scream 3 also makes the mistake of revisiting actual set-ups from the first two film, trying to inject new life into them, but we’ve literally already been there and done that, and the film is often fairly flaccid as a result.

Scream 3 does take some nice liberties with its general format this time around, including putting a couple, rather than a hapless female, in harm’s way in the opening prelude. There are also some fun cameos flitting by the screen, including Jamie Kennedy, Heather Mattarazzo and in a very funny bit, Carrie Fisher. Fisher’s world weary, jaded Hollywood hack routine is one of the best things about the film, however short it may be.

The shock value is largely gone from this Scream, however well Wes Craven stages individual elements. We simply know that if our heroes are looking to the right, the danger is going to come from the left, and no amount of jump cuts and sound effects is going to provide the scintillating combination of fear and laughter that the first two Scream films had in abundance. All is certainly not lost here, though, and there are a number of great moments interspersed in a somewhat disjointed film, including great work from people like Patrick Dempsey as Detective Kincaid, Matt Keeslar as Tom Prinze, an actor in Stab 3 (most of the “actors” have names combining two famous people), and especially Patrick Warburton as the slightly addle-pated bodyguard of Posey’s character Jennifer Jolie.

The Scream trilogy is being released on Blu-ray as a build up to the forthcoming fourth Scream film, which is due in theaters soon (the Blu-rays all contain a trailer for the film, which looks at least promising from this brief peek). This certainly wouldn’t be the first time a franchise was able to regain its footing after a stumble or two (or three), but it will be really interesting to see what new territory (if any) Craven and returning scenarist Williamson will explore, especially as they’ve evidently both signed on to create a whole new trilogy. As it stands, while Scream 3 might be an enjoyable enough film on its own merits, it pales in comparison to the first two Scream films. That’s the real terror of producing a film franchise—there’s always a baseline for easy reference.

Scream 3 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The three Scream films have had some rather surprisingly noticeable differences in their Blu-ray incarnations, even though all three are offered with AVC encodes in 1080p and 2.35:1. Scream was fairly soft a good deal of the time, but it sported very nicely saturated color. Scream 2 featured a substantial uptick in clarity and sharpness when compared to the first film, but its color was somewhat pallid by comparison to Scream. Both films suffered from occasional digital noise, moiré and shimmer, though both had reasonably intact grain structure. Scream 3 falls somewhere in between the first two films in most of these categories. It's somewhat schizophrenic in its sharpness factor, with some darker shots being soft to the point of murkiness, with uneven black levels and noticeably poor contrast. Brightly lit scenes on the other hand pop with impressive clarity and sharpness. Grain is quite prevalent throughout this release and in fact approaches digital noise levels in some of the low contrast evening shots. Scream 3, like its forebears, also suffers from annoyingly persistent artifacting like moiré and shimmer.

Scream 3 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Scream 3's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is another riot of sound effects, expertly placed, often with obvious misdirection, around an ever changing soundfield. In some ways Scream 3 is the most aggressively over the top sound mix of all three Scream 3 films, with abundant LFE and a crazy panoply of sound effects assaulting the listener. That actually makes the soundtrack perhaps too busy at times, ultimately working against the film's effectiveness, at least with regard to the scary stuff. Fidelity here is excellent, though, with really robust reproduction through all frequency ranges, and dynamic range is also very, very impressive. Source cues, effects and dialogue are very well mixed and aside from the over the top elements, which some may find distracting or even annoying after a while, this is a very fun, extremely cinematic mix that surrounds the listener in a wide variety of very inventive effects.

Scream 3 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Craven, producer Marianne Maddalena and editor Patrick Lussier follows much the same chatty but informative format that their similar work on Scream 2 did. It's fun to hear some of the now unintentionally ironic commentary, especially with regard to then-newlyweds David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette.
• Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Craven, Maddalena and Lussier (SD; 13:33) offers some alternate takes and other snippets not used in the film, but suffers from really shoddy video quality.
• Alternate Ending with Optional Commentary by Craven, Maddalena and Lussier (SD; 10:02) is also discussed at length during the final cut of the film by this trio, but it's fun to see how the original ending was slightly tweaked to up its fear quotient. Make sure to watch this and then go back to the final cut to watch the various actors' changing hair lengths as the newly shot material is incorporated into shots filmed months previously.
• Outtakes (SD; 6:34) has some fun flubs and goofy behavior.
• Behind the Scenes Montage (SD; 6:20) has snippets of shots being filmed from all three Scream films.
• Music Video features Creed rocking out (well. . .) on "What If".
• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1:26)
• International Trailer (SD; 1:39)
• TV Spots (SD; 5:46)

Scream 3 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If Scream 3 didn't by its very nature have to stand on the formidable shoulders of Scream and Scream 2, it would probably be more solidly appreciated than it is. As it stands, it's kind of the poor stepchild of the Scream franchise, something that works in fits and starts and certainly has both humor and shock in abundance, but it simply seems a warmed over approximation of what we've seen and heard before in the first two films. This film actually probably does better in the humor department, and it has a great time skewering the pretensions and dashed dreams of Hollywood insiders. It's going to be really interesting to see what Craven and Williamson have in store for rabid fans with Scream 4, and anyone wanting to be "up to speed" with these characters would probably do well to revisit all three Scream entries. While this film isn't quite at the level of the first two, it has enough going for it to earn a rating of Recommended.