In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!
SCENE 7 of
Scream 3
Length: 5mins 40secs
Primary Characters: Sarah Darling, Roman Bridges (voice), Tyson Fox and Ghostface
Pop Culture References:
- Psycho and Vertigo (Sarah gets these two Hitchcock films confused)
- Scream 2 (Sarah is an obvious play on Sarah Michelle Gellar from Scream 2 and references to the making of Scream 2 are included)
I hope they change these establishing shots up!
I've long held the belief that
Scream 3 can be read as a spoof of its own franchise. What better way to continue mocking the horror genre than to mock your own series of films that revitalised the very genre you were mocking in the first place?! It's moments like this that make me believe I'm right in a way. There's no reason for the filmmakers to throw in a scene of Sarah here being spooked by a mysterious noise in the middle of broad daylight, there's just not, and yet they have it there. The filmmakers just decided to turn their own frachise's MO up to 11 and put every single cliche in there, even when it was completely unnecessary.
"Stab 3. Jesus, I gotta get a new agent."
So, we come to the second chase sequence of the movie.
Scream 3 slicks closer to the
Scream blueprint here with scene 7 here coming at
exactly the same time in proceedings as it did in the original, unlike
Scream 2 that featured far more talk and didn't get around to "the chick who gets killed second" until
the 29 minute mark of scene 9.
I've said it before and I'll continue to say it, the cinematography of the
Scream franchise is always really wonderfully framed. Always used in a great way to get the viewer into the space of a scene. Think of the way Drew Barrymore looked standing in front of those big glass patio doors or the way the above-angle shots of Randy in the park provided that sense of menace. I always like how characters are framed to show any manner of places in which the killer could be hiding. Like in this shot, for instance, we have an open door right in front of Sarah or the long passageway with doors opening up on either side into rooms that could easily hide the killer. He could quite literally be anywhere.
After working on
Scream 3, cinematographer Peter Deming went and made
Mulholland Drive with David Lynch, which worked the LA movie world in a far different, but even scarier, manner.
"Fuck you very much."
Why didn't this catchphrase, er, catch on? Oh, that's right... it's stupid. Although, in 2011 that line probably sounds like poetry to some people.
So, I see headshots for "Jennifer Jolie", "Cotton Weary", "Tyson Fox", "Sarah Darling" and "Tom Prinze". The one for Cotton is obviously a prop since there's no way that would actually be Liev Schreiber's headshot, but the others all look legitimate and real. Do you reckon they are? Who are the others, too?
Scream 3 extras? Crew who got headshots taken as a joke and used in the movie as set decoration?
Okay, so, when I went to go see
Shark Night 3D I inadvertently witnessed the trailer for that new Adam Sandler movie
Jack & Jill. It looks really bad. Really, really bad. There's one bit where Sandler, dressed as a woman for some reason, kicks a football (or something - I am not going to YouTube to watch it and find out exactly) and it hits Al Pacino's Oscar, which then shatters into hundreds of little pieces. I don't think Academy Awards are that fragile, to be honest. Same goes for this award, whatever it is. What is this trophy made of if it falls apart the moment it gets dropped on the ground. I'm surprised it made it out of the ceremony unharmed if that's the case (especially given some of the stories we hear about award show after parties!)
"Since I've got you on the phone, let's talk about your character."
"What character? I'm Candy, the chick who gets killed second, I'm only in two scenes."
The meta is off the chart! Jenny McCarthy who is only in two scenes of
Scream 3 and gets killed second (third technically, but second death scene) playing a character in
Stab 3 who is in only two scenes and gets killed second who is obviously modeled on the actress who was only in two scenes of
Scream 2 and got killed second (third technically, but second death scene).
Wait, what?
"Ring ring. Hello."
"Hello."
"Who is this?"
"Who's this?"
"It's Candy. Hang on, let me put on some clothes."
Hah. Amazing. I adore the way she says "ring ring" for some peculiar reason.
"I don't understand why I have to start the scene in the shower. The whole shower thing's been done; Vertigo, hello!"
Oh Candy. I actually like Jenny McCarthy in
Scream 3. She's obviously playing off of her own dumb blonde routine - but future movies like, say,
Dirty Love, prove she may be aware of her image but not willing to do anything about it - and I think she looks great, too, I just have a bit of an issue with the behind the scenes metamorphosis of her character. The story goes that Sarah Michelle Gellar was a bit too hands on for Wes Craven's liking and spend much of her time on set giving Wes "ideas" for how her scene could play out. Having worked on
Buffy the Vampire Slayer had apparently given her ideas on stunts and the like. Craven was probably glad she got cast as CiCi and not someone who got to stick around longer.
So, apparently Sarah Darling is highly influenced by Sarah Michelle Gellar and makes me wonder what Smidge thought of
Scream 3 if she ever did see it.
"Candy. Is that like candy cane or candy apple?"
"Come on, who is this? I think you have the wrong number."
"But you know my favourite name?"
"I'm hanging up right now."
"It's Sarah."
"Roman, that's not the line."
"It is in my script."
"Has there been another god-damned rewrite? How the fuck are we supposed to learn our lines when there's a new script every 15 minutes?"
"It's not just a new script, it's a new movie."
"What? What movie?"
"My movie..."
*click*
"... And it's called Sarah Gets Skewered Like a Fucking Pig."
"Still in character... Sarah?"
Okay, so, a few things about this exchange: