"Holy shit, Silent Bob, it's that TV newschick Connie fucking Chung. Hey Connie, how's Maury?"

Wes Craven keeps the series going with a completely unnecessary installment, 'Scream 3,' one lacking in sympathy for the characters (sans the opening with Cotton, who I've always enjoyed) and excitement due to the decrease in gore, no doubt a result of scaling back due to the Columbine school shooting, and the heightened comedy and general air of goofiness. So many aspects of this film make absolutely no sense and rely on the most insane, one-in-a-million chances for the killer's plan to unfold the way it does. I didn't mind when I was younger but not having seen the film in a long while, the inconsistencies and issues really, really stand out. This one doesn't work for me as much as the others do.

Sidney's the star of this series, so opting to keep her shuttered away for roughly half the film is a bad idea, as the newer cast members can't hold a candle to her importance and their foolish, knee jerk reactions kill a lot of the moments that could've been tense and eerie otherwise. Off that, why they felt the need to bring back a certain deceased, fan favorite character in such a ridiculous way that's filled with impossible foresight is beyond me. For closing out a trilogy, this one feels hampered by a genre shift, meta characters that don't work for the most part (sans Posey) and a bullish twist that has no bearing on anything that's come before in the franchise. It's fairly bad across the board.