Scream 3 is my second-favorite movie in the horror franchise and with Scream 7 bringing back its Ghostface, it's time everyone gives it a second chance

While Paramount Pictures hasn't said it outright, Scream 7's marketing seems to suggest that it's going to be the final film in the long-running franchise. "Every phone call. Every killer… has led to this," a TV spot released back in January stated, while another, more recent trailer invited cinemagoers to experience "one last scream".

With that, I've been reflecting on the series as a whole, as well as my relationship to it – from being a pre-teen who used to mouth every line while cowering behind a cushion at sleepovers, to a hardened horror fan who was disappointed by the newer installments. And it's time I admit in writing that I think that Scream 3, the lowest-ranked outing at 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, is actually the best one after the 1996 original.

It's the campiest of the lot, for starters, and not just because notorious scene-stealer Parker Posey is in it. As the film relocates the action to Los Angeles, a new Ghostface sets about picking off the cast of Stab 3, a big-budget slasher based on the events of Scream and Scream 2. First, Liev Schreiber's Cotton Weary, who was falsely accused of murdering Sidney's mom Maureen in the first flick, gets sliced and diced in the prologue, then Sarah, who's playing Candy, and Dewey actor Tom.

With that, our heroes soon work out that the killer is targeting the performers in the same order their characters die in the script – but things get complicated when the mask-wearing knife-wielder manages to drag a now-reclusive Sidney (Neve Campbell), who's been working as an abuse hotline counsellor, to Hollywood.

Just like its predecessor shook things up by having it take place at Sidney's college in Ohio, the different setting gives the trilogy capper a welcome fresh feel – which was, of course, bolstered by the fact that The Ring's Ehren Kruger took over writing duties from former scribe Kevin Williamson. Snoozy streets and mutely colored institutes make way for neon-lit highways and busy backlots. But as Ghostface tussles with Sidney in a mock-up of her old family home and chases her through Stu Macher's house, it also manages to do something Scream 2 couldn't: satiate our nostalgia at the same time.

Its ensemble cast of characters are well-drawn, from snivelling, ambitious starlet Angelina (Emily Mortimer) to optimistic LAPD detective Mark Kincaid (Patrick Dempsey), and it also offers up more iron-clad reasons as to why Dewey (David Arquette), Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), and Sidney would reunite, too – something that can't be said for other installments, especially Scream (2022).

The former, it turns out, has been hired by Sunrise Studios as a technical advisor on Stab 3 ("Someone who went through the real experience, knew the real people") while Gale has been brought in by Kincaid since Stab 3 is based on a book she wrote. As for Sidney's involvement, the character explains it perfectly in the film itself: "He found me. I'm no more safe there than I am here, and at least here I'm not alone."

For a series that prides itself on being meta, it always made so much sense to me to center Scream 3 in the world of filmmaking, too. You can't really get more tongue-in-cheek than that – and it's something I appreciated even more about the movie on my latest rewatch, given that Scream 7 writer Kevin Williamson has previously suggested that it won't be all that self-referential.

"It's continuing the legacy of Sidney Prescott. It's about her daughter," he told Empire magazine back in early February. "It's about family."

"It's a whole full circle story for Sidney," Campbell added in a later interview with GamesRadar+. "She's made the very brave choice to have children herself… She wants to live in this small town, have a family, and overcome her past. And of course, she's got great fear that'll come to visit her family… which it does. But you know she gets to sort of heal that wound." But Scream 3 already saw Sidney face up to the trauma in a cathartic, meaningful way.

Having evaded two sets of Ghostface killers, secluded Sidney suffers from haunting visions of Maureen's ghost at her ranch – and is forced to dig deeper into her past when she learns that photos of her have been left by each of the new killer's victims. It's ultimately revealed that Maureen used to work as an actress in the 1970s, using the name 'Rina Reynolds', and was sexually assaulted by big-shot producer John Milton (Lance Henriksen). The attack led to her having a son, Roman Bridger (Scott Foley), who she later gave up. In the mid-90s, Roman tracked Maureen down and introduced himself, but the latter rejected him – not willing to acknowledge him and disrupt the quiet, domestic bliss she'd carved out for herself with her new family. Bitter, Roman then encouraged Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) to kill Maureen, setting off the string of slaughters in Woodsboro and beyond.

It's a surprisingly twisted throughline in an otherwise lighter Scream movie, which tackles cyclical violence and boldly dares to shine a light on the dark side of Hollywood, almost 17 years before the MeToo movement started to gain widespread momentum. It also sets the scene for Sidney to put everything to bed once and for all…

Following her stand-off with Roman in the film's final act, which makes full use of Milton's elaborate, gothic mansion, she's finally able to overcome her crippling fear that she'll never be safe and that living is just as important as surviving. The movie sees the character preparing for a movie night with Mark, Gale, and Dewey right before the credits roll, and spotting that her back door is wide open. She stares at it for a moment before deciding to leave it swinging; a far cry from the moment we first see her, in which she's bolting her front gate and setting multiple intruder alarms.

While I appreciate that some may prefer their Scream movies on the scarier side, Scream 3 offers up some genuinely side-splitting moments in amongst the above seedy seriousness, too. I still giggle when I think of, "50 dollars? Who are you, a reporter for Woodsboro High?!" or Carrie Fisher's cameo as a soundstage employee who lost out on the role of Princess Leia to "the one who sleeps with George Lucas." Posey's Jennifer Jolie and Cox's Gale make for an endlessly watchable double-act, too, as they spit venom at one another and team up Scooby-Doo-style to save the day.

Now, Scream 3 isn't perfect. Sure, its death sequences are frustratingly bloodless; nothing comes close to Casey's torture in the first film or the demise of Jada Pinkett-Smith's character in Scream 2. (I won't hear a bad word said about the two-way mirror sequence, mind). But that was a directive given by its producers at Dimension Films following the tragic Columbine High School Massacre in 1999. At that time, studios were impacted by the moral panic over the media's depiction of violence, and Williamson's initial cult-driven screenplay was dropped in favor of Krueger's more comedic industry satire.

"From jail, I was kind of masterminding this attack against Sidney. Three weeks before we were supposed to start shooting, Columbine High School broke out, and they changed everything," Lillard, who was set to return as Stu Macher, once explained on the Bob Bendick Podcast. "They kind of took the script and threw it to the side. They bought me out, and I never did the third one."

There's also the oversight that Roman and Sidney meet for the very first time when Roman unveils himself as the killer, which dilutes the conclusion's emotional stakes. But there's something immensely fun about a horror movie in which the director is the string-pulling antagonist – and it only makes me love Wes Craven more for signing off on something like that.

Foley's Bridger is confirmed to be returning in the upcoming Scream 7, though it's a secret as to how for now, given that we last saw him being fatally shot in the head. Whatever the circumstances of his comeback, I hope Williamson, who's taken on directing duties this time around as well, puts some respect on Scream 3's name and encourages its doubters to give it a long overdue second chance.

Scream 3 is available to stream on Paramount Plus and FuboTV in the US, and Prime Video and Netflix in the UK. Scream 7 releases in theaters on February 26. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.