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"Scream 3"

Directed by Wes Craven.
Written by Ehren Kruger. 
Starring Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courtney Cox.
Release Year:  2000 
Review Date:  2/6/00 

Folks-- 

Hope that everyone had a good weekend...this week, we start off by addressing the Kozmo.com situation.  As many of you know, Brian "Schmoove" Prenoveau and I have been sweating Kozmo for some time now for their seemingly ridiculous $9.99 CD prices.  Well, an extremely distressed Schmoove left a message on my machine last week letting me know for sure:  it's over.  He found out that the $9.99 prices were promotional and went for a few months, but ended January 31st, 2000.  If you never checked out the site before now, shame on you, because you missed out on a great deal.  But, they still have pretty good prices on their other products...and, they still deliver them to your door in less than one hour.

While I did go see a movie today with the lovely and mysterious Kristin "Not Kristen" Hollingsworth, there is a more distressing trend that I am going to address today.  I won't even go into what "Scream 3" is about:  you probably have a vague idea of what happens during it, even if you haven't seen the first two.  And, this third (and final) movie in the series does a manageable job of once again playing off all of the stereotypes that horror movies seem to rely on.  Lots of slashing deaths and a pretty consistent stream of profanity litter its 116 minutes of fun--you'll have a good time but the movie is so been there, done that it becomes monotonous to hear each character announce that in horror movies, their type of character always gets killed...and then, watching them get killed.  Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courtney Cox Arquette are all back in this movie, and the only suspense in my mind was whether or not David Arquette's goofy cop was going to get killed for so many fucking awful 10-10-800-287-9000-321-Collect commercials that he does in his spare time (it gives nothing away to say that he doesn't).  This movie was a step above "Scream 2," which both Kristin and I thought was the worst of the three.  It also includes the use of this line, which has now been said in over 4000 motion pictures during the 1990s:

"It was the 70s, man...everything was just different back then."

Alex, could I get "clichés" for $200?  Apparently, every one alive during the 70s was outside at about 8:30 pm each night, having sex with four of their neighbors with a joint in one hand and two ABBA records in the other, dancing at Studio 54 waiting in line to see "Saturday Night Fever."  Jeez...

Anyway, the thing that really angered me about "Scream 3" wasn't the movie, but the four young children I saw in the audience after the movie.  Regular readers of Bellview know that I harp on this periodically, but today I would have approached one of the parents had Kristin not been with me.  As it was, I just stared down one of the fathers that had two small boys with him (I'm *assuming* it was their father), slightly shaking my head.  I was thinking to myself how the conversation must have went with the boys earlier in the day when they were deciding what to do with their Sunday:

Dad:  Well, boys, any ideas for this afternoon?
Bobby:  Dad, can we go see "Scream 3?"
Dad:  Hmm...hey, isn't that the slasher flick with that knife-wielding killer and doesn't he kill a lot of heavily-endowed 25-year-old women?
Timmy:  Umm, yeah, that one!
Dad:  And, aren't there a lot of shots of knives plunging into the chests of the killer's victims?  I think I saw the first one...that scene with Drew Barrymore where she gets stabbed like seven times, doesn't die, then gets stabbed four more times and then is left to bleed to death while hanging from a tree?
Bobby and Timmy:  YEAH!
Dad:  That is so boss!  Let's go, kids!  And after the movie...we're gonna get hookers!!
Bobby and Timmy:  WOO-HOO!

If this is what parenting is about these days, I don't think I want to bring kids into the world anytime soon.  I know our world is going to hell in a handbasket any day now, but there's no need to speed up the process by taking little kids to see horror films.  Talk about nightmares...I still have nightmares now about "Poltergeist," "The Exorcist," that last scene in "The Blair Witch Project," "Jacob's Ladder"--I saw all of those movie in high school or later!  "Scream 3" is mostly played for laughs, but I didn't think the scene where one of the guys is stabbed in the neck three times was all that funny.

Rating:  Matinee

 

Comments?  Drop me a line at justin@bellviewmovies.com.

 

Bellview Rating System:

"Opening Weekend":  This is the highest rating a movie can receive.  Reserved for movies that exhibit the highest level of acting, plot, character development, setting...or Salma Hayek.  Not necessarily in that order. 

"$X.XX Show":  This price changes each year due to the inflation of movie prices; currently, it is the $9.50 Show.  While not technically perfect, this is a movie that will still entertain you at a very high level.  "Undercover Brother" falls into this category; it's no "Casablanca", but you'll have a great time watching.  The $9.50 Show won't win any Oscars, but you'll be quoting lines from the thing for ages (see "Office Space"). 

"Matinee":  An average movie that merits no more than a $6.50 viewing at your local theater.  Seeing it for less than $9.50 will make you feel a lot better about yourself.  A movie like "Blue Crush" fits this category; you leave the theater saying "That wasn't too bad...man, did you see that Lakers game last night?" 

"Rental":  This rating indicates a movie that you see in the previews and say to your friend, "I'll be sure to miss that one."  Mostly forgettable, you couldn't lose too much by going to Hollywood Video and paying $3 to watch it with your sig other, but you would only do that if the video store was out of copies of "Ronin."  If you can, see this movie for free.  This is what your TV Guide would give "one and a half stars." 

"Hard Vice":  This rating is the bottom of the barrel.  A movie that only six other human beings have witnessed, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.  A Shannon Tweed "thriller," it is so bad as to be funny during almost every one of its 84 minutes, and includes the worst ending ever put into a movie.  Marginally worse than "Cabin Boy", "The Avengers" or "Leonard, Part 6", this rating means that you should avoid this movie at all costs, or no costs, EVEN IF YOU CAN SEE IT FOR FREE!  (Warning:  strong profanity will be used in all reviews of "Hard Vice"-rated movies.)