‘Scream’ Trilogy Ends With A Mere Whimper … Ironic, Huh?

Assuming you can stand his withering smugness, Troy Deyer does offer us a good definition of irony.

Troy, Ethan Hawke’s character in the Helen Childress-written screenplay “Reality Bites,” has the annoying habit of answering the phone by saying, “Hello, you’ve reached the winter of our discontent.”

When it comes to irony, he’s the kind of guy who can rattle off the definition verbatim — which, according to Webster’s New World, is “a method of humorous or subtly sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the direct opposite of their usual sense.”

To those of us living in the post-Seinfeld era, irony is more than an attitude or artistic style. It is a veritable way of life in and of itself. We don’t understand irony so much as live in the midst of it (consider the success of “Survivor”).

Which brings us to 1) another meaning of the term irony and 2) an introduction to the video/DVD release of “Scream 3,” which becomes available this week (see capsule review below).

The other meaning involves being in the know, of boasting “a cool, detached attitude of mind, characterized by recognition of the incongruities of experience.” And no film series in recent history is more detached, more knowing than Wes Craven’s “Scream” trilogy.

The first installment (1996), which begins with the now-famous Drew Barrymore fillet sequence, sets up the concept. Randy (Jamie Kennedy) tells us that slasher films, the very kind of film that “Scream” both is and is lampooning, have specific “rules” that characters must abide by if they want to survive.

“Number one,” he says, “you can never have sex. Big no-no, big no-no… . Sex equals death, OK? Number two, you can never drink or do drugs. No sin factor. This is a sin. It’s an extension of number one. Number three, never never ever under any circumstances do you ever say, `I’ll be right back,’ because you won’t be back.”

Some characters break the rules and live. Others break them and die. That, folks, is recognizing the incongruities of experience, even if those incongruities are all ultimately explained.

“Scream 2” (1997) is even better, which puts a lie to the notion, again as voiced by Randy, that “sequels suck.” I mean, how can you resist a film that uses as a major plot point the making of a film version of itself and actually jokes about Tori Spelling being the star?

“I cannot believe it,” Randy — a character whom I love — says, “they get Tori Spelling to play Syd (Neve Campbell), and they cast Joe Blow nobody to play me. At least you get David Schwimmer. I get the guy who drove stagecoach for one episode of `Dr. Quinn.’ “

The major portion of credit for the “Scream” films has gone to Craven, even though the scripts were written by Kevin Williamson. And Williamson’s presence, to point out his importance, was missing for the third (and, one would hope, final) movie.

Yet even though the trilogy seems to have ended with a whimper instead of a wail, the first two films have much to recommend them. They are rare examples of art both being something while commenting on that very something as well.

Other filmmakers, many more talented than Craven ever will be, have failed at the same task. As evidence, we’ll offer a final Randy quote:

What’s your favorite scary movie? he is asked.

“Showgirls,” Randy answers. “Absolutely frightening.”

For once, he’s not being ironic at all.

The week’s major release on video/DVD:

Scream 3

**

In what we can only hope is the final chapter in this neo-slasher series — which at best was knowing and clever, at worst was merely ordinary — Wes Craven has returned to his early, journeyman form (see “The Last House on the Left”). In what looks like a three-day shooting schedule, which doesn’t allow makeup artists any real chance to cover up the pimple on Neve Campbell’s chin, Craven provides evidence that his two earlier efforts — 1996’s “Scream” and 1997’s much-improved “Scream 2” — were pretty much an accident.

This time, the wit behind the scenes, screenwriter Kevin Williamson, is missing and it shows. (Of course, Williamson hasn’t done all that well on his own, as “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” prove.)

And this time, rules that we learned in the first two films have no meaning. As actor Jamie Kennedy (one of the best parts of “Scream 2”) tells us in a video interlude, anything can happen now. Not that anything interesting does, including the now-famous opening sequence that has resorted to killing off former “Beverly Hills 90210” secondary cast members instead of genuine stars such as Drew Barrymore or Jada Pinkett. Clearly, the “Scream” series has gone out with a moan. (VHS/DVD) Rated R.