Teens narrowly escape a fatal, faulty Rollercoaster accident, cheating death…and Death is one seriously peeved mofo! Mucho bloody mouse trap-style ‘accidental’ murders follow. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays the patented ‘final girl’ whose premonition saves her and a few friends, all others (played by other nobodies with such improbable names as Texas Battle- the poor dear!) are potential dead meat.
This series has always been the best of the “Scream” off-shoots (of which there are far too many, including “Valentine”, “Ripper”, the Aussie rip-off “Cut”, and of course the underwhelming “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, and “Urban Legends” films), even though each entry has gotten a little bit worse than the last. This James Wong film does everything the other two films did (including a crushing death), just not quite as well.
Still, the tongue-in-cheek gory death scenes are fun for those inclined (though the opening scene is over-extended. The payoff is brilliant, one of the best runaway roller-coasters I’ve seen, but c’mon, this is the third film, we know what the deal is with the opening scene, why play it out so slowly? I know that’s kinda the point with these films, but the third film in we should perhaps be deviating a little from the formula I think. It does work, however during a scene showing a gym accident waiting to happen, very well done), and let’s face it, they’re the best thing about these morbidly clever films anyway (The nail gun death here is my favourite in the series, and the drive-thru at McDonald’s ain’t gonna look the same after this sick little movie, that’s for sure!). Terrific-looking carnival-themed opening credits, too.
OVERALL SUMMARY
If you liked the first two, you’ll get something out of this one as well, it is what it is, and what you’d expect it to be. All others need not apply.
