11. Sidney Prescott Doesn't Survive Scream 3
Scream 3 was definitely a missed opportunity for me. After the cool, sexy, brutal, snappy first two installments, taking every slasher movie cliche and turning it on its head, I had high hopes for the final part of the trilogy. Unfortunately it never reached the heights for the first two. Its difficult to pin point why. There was an attempt to make an interesting back story with the long lost brother and the revelation about Sidney's mother, bringing the events of the first film full circle. And I loved the idea that the events of Scream spawned the film within the film 'Stab' while the events of 'Stab 3' spawns the events of Scream 3. Plus Carrie Fisher not playing Carrie Fisher was genius. Part of the reason was that the plodding was just a little off. Once again Dewey and Gail weren't together, despite everything they had gone through. And the new cast (Parker Posey's Jennifer / 'Gail' aside), just didn't have the dynamic of the previous two casts. Dare I say it, it was even a little tired and dull in places, But I think the biggest problem with the third film was that there wasn't that element of danger that the first two had. Anyone was a potential victim (or killer) in Scream while poor Randy met a particularly brutal fate in Scream 2. But in the third film the core trio survived. Again. And while we wanted Sidney to defeat her demons and Dewey and Gail to finally stay together, their united survival made it difficult to care when other characters were hacked and slashed. I think the film would have been instantly better if Sidney had meet her fate, dying with her brother in the final act. It would have brought the shocks that the third film failed to manage and given a definitive ending to the series (though I admit, I quite enjoyed Scream 4 and the 'twist' at the end). And like poor Laurie Strode or Nancy Thompson, Sidney's death would have followed that grim tradition of heroines surviving the first film (maybe even the second and third), but ultimately dying at the killer's deadly hands (or knives).