Horror Extreme Movie Catalog - Editorial Reviews

Stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courteney Cox Arquette are back for more in the chilling final chapter of this phenomenally popular and frightfully entertaining trilogy! While Sidney Prescott (Campbell) lives in safely guarded seclusion, bodies begin dropping around the Hollywood set of STAB 3, the latest movie sequel based on the gruesome Woodsboro killings! And when the escalating terror finally brings her out of hiding, Sidney and other Woodsboro survivors are once again drawn into an insidious game of horror movie mayhem! But just when they thought they knew how to play by the rules, they discover that all the rules have been broken! Featuring hot newcomers Parker Posey (THE HOUSE OF YES) and Jenny McCarthy (DIAMONDS) in another stellar ensemble cast, SCREAM 3 offers an unmatched mix of thrills, laughter, and suspense that bring this spine-tingling saga to an unforgettable conclsuion!

When Randy the video geek rattles off the rules of surviving a horror movie in Wes Craven's Scream, he speaks for a generation of filmgoers who are all too aware of slasher movie cliches. Playfully scripted by Kevin Williamson with a self-aware wink and more than a few nods to its grandfathers (from Psycho to Halloween to the Friday the 13th dynasty), Scream skewers teen horror conventions with loving reverence while re-creating them in a modern, movie-savvy context. And so goes the series, which continues the satirical spoofing by tackling (what else?) sequels while sustaining its own self-contained mythology. Catty reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) turns grisly murders into lurid bestsellers, a cult of killer wannabes continues to hunt spunky psycho-survivor Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) for their 15 minutes of fame, and a cheesy movie series (Stab) develops within the movie series. Scream remains the high point of the series--a fresh take on a genre long since collapsed into routine, but Scream?2 spoofs itself with witty humor ("Why would anyone want to do that? Sequels suck!" opines college film student Randy), and delights with more elaborate set pieces and all-new rules for surviving a horror movie sequel. The endangered veterans of the original film reunite one last time for Scream?3, which plays out on the movie set of Stab?3. (It's a trilogy within a trilogy!) With Williamson gone, replacement screenwriter Ehran Kruger tries to mine the formula one more time. It's a little tired by now, and pale imitations (Urban Legend, I Know What You Did Last Summer) have further drained the zeitgeist, but the film bubbles with bright humor, and director Craven is stylistically at the top of his game. As a trilogy, it remains both the most consistently entertaining and self-aware horror series ever made. --Sean Axmaker