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Review of Scream 3 (Marco Beltrami)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek the best-developed score Marco Beltrami
recorded for the Scream concept, an impressive expansion of the
franchise's themes into a more orchestrally robust realm.
Avoid it... if you've never found the famous, vocalized theme for the lead character to be alluring, for the best moments of Scream 3 involve the surprisingly dramatic, albeit brief evolution of that idea.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Scream 3: (Marco Beltrami) The magic touch of Wes
Craven and Kevin Williamson had worn thin by Scream 3, with the
franchise becoming a parody of a genre that it so adeptly avoided in the
first installment. By the year 2000, few cared about Sidney Prescott and
her troubles with a murderous ghost-faced lunatic, and the script of
Scream 3 was so contrived and ridiculous that it was a painful
reminder of why the original Scream was so effective. Even the
best of new perspectives on a tired, old genre eventually get old. Core
members of the original Woodsboro gang return, and, as the basic
requirement of the franchise, several new actors are introduced with the
intention of killing them off in piercing ways. By the end of Scream
3, however, there is finally resolution and explanation for Sidney,
and despite the creepy open door (literally) at the end of the film, the
franchise was finally put to rest until belated sequels forced
additional dollars from audiences many years later. Composer Marco
Beltrami had defined his career in the 1990's with this new generation
of teen slasher films, using them to launch into a more successful
career with blockbuster action films in the 2000's. His involvement with
Scream 3 was never in doubt; his scores for the first two
installments were a distinct aspect of the franchise's character, even
though music from both Hans Zimmer and Danny Elfman was famously
inserted somewhat bizarrely and unnecessarily in Scream 2,
spurring significant controversy. The Beltrami scores for these films
had a unique style of electronic and orchestral manipulation, led by a
memorable theme for the protagonist herself and followed by several
other motifs that make a full circle in the trilogy. For Scream
3, Beltrami, aided by Buck Sanders, changed his equation a bit,
emphasizing unusual textures while also beefing up the presence of an
orchestral ensemble, the budget for this score's recording larger than
any of the others he led for the franchise.
As part of his more expansive time and budget for Scream 3, Beltrami not only employed seven orchestrators for the score but also experimented with the recording of instruments in abnormal circumstances. The natural sound of the piano, for instance, was altered both physically and electronically, and this technique was applied to a wide range of other struck instruments. Beltrami twisted the resulting performances in the mixing process and sprinkled that creativity amongst the standard orchestral contributions. The evidence of this work is often hidden in the more obnoxious cues of Scream 3, however, with the exception of the effect of detuned tubular bells of some sort that prevail in most of the cues. Otherwise, it's the smart incorporation of the thematic elements that really makes Scream 3 stand apart from its predecessors. The main theme for Sidney matures significantly in Scream 3, receiving not only several remarkable performances in its horror and suspense mode, but also in a dramatic major-key translation teased in the middle and fully realized at the end. The prominent suspenseful performances of the theme, with the female vocalist joined by light choral tones in "Home on the Range" and menacing male tones in "Home Sweet Home" (otherwise known as "Pied a Terror"), are offered with robust orchestral accompaniment. This theme's performance of lament at the start of "Sid Wears a Dress" is significant to the storyline, for the opening portion of the theme is translated into a sorrowful duet between the standard female voice and a single male one likely representing Sidney's half-brother. The eventual explosion of the theme later in "Sid Wears a Dress" was teased earlier in "Sid Arrives," but in the conclusive cue, it enjoys a remarkable transformation into a victorious, major-key statement as Sidney is seen walking her dog and, with its ethereal choir, serves as the highlight of the franchise's music. The token reminder of horror in "Sid's Theme (Reprise)" at the end of the album, on whiny, barely enunciated violins, is somewhat tacky. Fans of the franchise's scores will find that Beltrami did an outstanding job at wrapping up other ideas from the first two films in Scream 3 as well. The funky, acoustic guitar theme for Dewey that was partially rejected in the prior movie is heard in "Dewey Mobile," but with some obnoxious faux-string strikes of Bernard Herrmann origin. An extension of the hip, contemporary style from Scream 2, heard in "Sunset Pictures" and partly adapted from a source piece, is a cousin to the material Beltrami would provide for 3:10 to Yuma. The theme for Woodsboro that opened the first score is heard on subtle piano over electronics in "On the Set." A consolidated, descending motif for Ghostface is used once again as well, with a prominent choral accompaniment for the idea conveyed at the end of "Ghost Attacks." While distinct, it's still difficult to enjoy this motif apart from the films. Perhaps the most interesting nod to previous music in the franchise is Beltrami's reprise of the acoustic guitar material from the first film for the scene of closure with Dewey and Gale. Hearing shades of Hans Zimmer's Broken Arrow once again in "Sid Wears a Dress" is somewhat surprising but pleasantly so. While Beltrami is definitely throwing a cookie to the audience despite his serious misgivings about the replacement of his music with Zimmer's in the prior movie, this material is actually more of an extension of Beltrami's own similar theme for the character anyway. The weakness of Scream 3 comes in its predictable horror and suspense material. Despite Beltrami's knack for applying interesting sound design into the mix, the score still leaves you yearning for that next thematic statement. The material in between is either mundane, in the case of the conversational cues "At the Station" and "Comparing Photos," or tiresome, which results from familiar low brass, shrieking strings, and random, dissonant woodwind performances that constitute the terror. Most of Scream 3 actually suffers from this rather mundane suspense material when not exploring one of the recurring ideas, though most of this music didn't see the light of day on album for a long time. The album situation for the Scream scores was long a frustrating prospect for suffering fans despite the Varèse Sarabande label's best attempts to appease them. Two years prior to the original album for Scream 3, Varèse offered the Scream and Scream 2 scores on one short, single CD, neglecting the non-Beltrami portions and generally painting too narrow a picture of the music from the two films. Still, this was the best Varèse could afford at the time. By the time of Scream 3, the label offered 33 minutes from Beltrami's score, which was an improvement but still led to several problems. Even though the product is generally a well-rounded listening experience, it is badly out of chronological order and truncates and combines several cues, missing a significant portion of music from the picture. The track titles utilized don't always correspond with the actual cue titles, potentially causing confusion. The lack of a continuous presentation of the action and conversational "realization" music from the final confrontation between Sidney and her assailant is disappointing, especially given the interesting variations on her theme that you hear in that scene. Another flaw of the album is its poor editing and mixing; because it is a compilation of fragments from throughout the score, you often hear rough edits at the start or ends of cues, with the volume not properly equalized from track to track. This inconsistency is especially detrimental to the four presentations of Sidney's theme, because the vocals in the first three and violins in the fourth can be almost inaudible compared to surrounding slashing-related tracks. Sudden drop-offs within the middle of a few cues are also tedious. In 2022, the label atoned for this product with a 6-CD set containing music from all four of Beltrami's scores for the franchise, with two discs dedicated to Scream 3 and a pair of bonus cues on the 6th disc. A robust 96 minutes of music is provided in film order, finally doing justice to the narrative. No significant improvement in sound quality is evident for this score on the set, though volume equalization issues are better addressed. The downside to this immense album length is that a fair number of Beltrami's cues of suspense are generic to the point that they slow the pace of the listening experience greatly. The mass of uninteresting material revealed on the 2022 Scream 3 album can be heard in "BooBalicious," "Candy Phone," "Kincaid at Crime Scene," "The Fall of Roman," "Killer Calls Sidney," "Stone Cold Dead," "Leia and the Stormtroopers," "Sid in the Can," and "Sidney Joins the Party." Otherwise, though, the newly released or expanded cues do contain attractions. The early pair of "Cotton Car" and "100% Scared" offer solid horror material. Gale's music is a bit better defined, "Gale Meets Kincaid" presenting nice suspense tones, but "Gale Arrives" is less significant. "Gale Spies on Dewey" takes the Woodsboro motif and ties it more specifically to Gale in this score, both "Gale Kicked Off Set" and "Three Different Scripts" evoking similar memories of the Woodsboro motif. The Dewey material's extension includes a decent reintroduction in "Dewey and the Gales," an enhanced level of bouncy twang to the idea in "Searching," and a touch comedy amongst the pure horror of "Boom Boom Out Go Lights," a cue that is all over the place. Listeners looking for additional performances of Sidney's theme (and that's most of you out there) will encounter a few nuggets along the way, from the straight vocal and piano version of her theme in "Dad Brings Home the Bacon" to a clean vocal performance following mundane ambience in "Randy Speaks." Most important is "Sid Arrives," which offers the optimistic foreshadowing of the conclusive cue. A few of the expanded horror and suspense cues are worth mentioning, including the notable stingers in "Sidney's Nightmare" and "Roll With It," the satisfying horror crescendos for full ensemble in "Candy Ain't So Sweet" and "Killer in the Closet," and "Ghostface vs. Jennifer," which adds a choral element to that voluminous horror. More accessible suspense volume occupies "Milton Takes Meetings," and "Dewey Falls for Gale" and "Siddin' on a Ghostface" both conclude with nice piano lines. On the other hand, the expanded versions of "Dewey Mobile," "Roman Around," and "All in the Family" are actually worse than their prior album cuts. The bonus material includes an alternate edit of "Sunset Pictures" and a lengthy demo cue by Beltrami that is pretty well developed for the era. The 2022 set finally solves the album ills for Scream 3, but in so doing it also exposes the unfortunate fact that much of the previously unreleased music is not particularly attractive. Still, Beltrami's score for Scream 3 overachieves and is one of the few true bright spots in an otherwise forgettable sequel.
TRACK LISTINGS:
2000 Varèse Album:
Total Time: 32:43
2022 Varèse Album: Total Time: 104:45
(CD 6 has two tracks from Scream 3)
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 2000 Varèse album includes a short note
by Wes Craven about the score. That of the 2022 album feature notes
about both the film and score. That set is contained in an awkwardly
unfolding Ghostface-shaped sleeve, with each CD held within a slim
cardboard case.
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