After the terrifying events that occurred around Windsor College, Sidney is now living alone in a secluded Northern California mountainside. Still haunted by her past, frightening images of her dead mother reappear time after time in her head as she tries to get on with her life. She now gives advice, under a fictional name for safety, to women in crisis via telephone. Soon enough though, her comfort turns to fear as she receives a threatening phone call from an anonymous source who informs her on the recent murders committed around the Hollywood set of "Stab 3: Return to Woodsboro, the third and final chapter to the 'Stab' series. Sidney decides to visit the set when she finds out that with every victim, the new killer leaves behind a different photo of Sidney's deceased mother, Maureen Prescott. Eventually the cast of "Stab 3" start dying one by one and more photos of Maureen appear. Mark Kincaid, an LAPD detective, is sent to investigate the strange murder and becomes friendly with Sidney. Meanwhile, Gale visits the set of "Stab 3," after she hears of the murders. Ironically, she meets up with Dewey, who is now working behind the film alongside his actress/girlfriend Jennifer. Gale, Dewey, and Sidney rejoin along with the actors and actresses of "Stab 3," who are all shaken up by the rest of the cast being killed off. As the secret to Sidney's past unfolds, the three discover that in the trilogy, anything can happen.

A special makeup-effects man working with "Tyson" on the set of Stab 3 is named Stan, a possible reference to legendary makeup-FX man Stan Winston.

The house used during the climax, where most of the killing takes place, is the same house used as a school in _Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)_ .

The empty cinematographer's chair on the "Stab 3" set has the name of the actual Scream 3 cinematographer, Peter Deming.

Throughout the movie the actors and actresses complain about the rewrites and the three different scripts for Stab 3. These complaints actually originated with the cast of Scream 3, because of frequent rewrites and three different endings.

Gale mentions Jennifer's relationship with Brad Pitt. Courtney Cox's "Friends" costar Jennifer Aniston is married to Brad Pitt.

Set a record in its opening weekend for number of screens in the U.S.: 3,467 (later surpassed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with 3,762).

Jay and Silent Bob, the popular drug dealer characters from 'Smith, Kevin' 's movies, appear as tourists visiting Sunrise Studios who spot Gail Weathers and mistake her for Connie Chung.

Director Cameo: [Wes Craven] can be seen dressed as a tourist walking behind Jay and Silent Bob, outside the 'Stab 3' set.

The Song "Red Right Hand" is played in all three of the movies.

During the studio tour, the tour guide mention's that the next stop on the tour is the set of Seinfeld. Patrick Warburton, who plays Steven Stone in the movie, was famous for role as David Puddy on Seinfeld.

During Randy's taped message to Sydney, Dewey and Gale, he refers to the Star Wars trilogy. Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the Star Wars trilogy, has a cameo in the movie as Bianca, the studio archive keeper.

Lance Henriksen's director character shares the same name as the famous 17th century English writer. The author John Milton is best known for his poem "Paradise Lost." In "Paradise Lost", Satan deceives Adam and Eve to choose temptation over God's Eden. Their decision leaves them expelled from Eden, forever corrupted. "Paradise Lost" suggests the debate concerning whether it is better to be bad than good. Director John Milton in Scream 3 dupes Maureen Prescott into believing that she can become successful in Hollywood by performing sexual favors. In a similar fashion as Adam and Eve, she loses her innocence to false promises of grandeur, receiving only bit parts in Milton's films. As a result of her corruption by Milton, Maureen Prescott fully embraces promiscuity as evident by the Scream trilogy storyline.

Slipknot's "Wait and Bleed" is on the soundtrack. Slipknot is known for wearing masks.

The bathroom Sidney finds Angelina in on the set of "Stab 3" is the same bathroom used when Sidney is attacked in the original "Scream." You can tell by position of doors and soap dispenser design.

Neve Campbell made a deal which stated that she could have been on set just for 20 days, which is also why she isn't as predominant a character as she is in the other films.

Throughout the film Sydney can be seen to be wearing the Greek letters around her neck that were given to her by her boyfriend Derrick, in Scream 2, shortly before he was killed.

Between Scream 2 and Scream 3, David Arquette and Courteney Cox (two of the four actors who feature in all the Scream movies) got married. They met on the set of the first movie, were an item whilst shooting the second and by the third they were married. Courteney added 'Arquette' to the end of her name, as can be seen in the credits. Courteney Cox and David Arquette had to cut their honeymoon short to begin filming Scream 3.

Kate Winslet, Shannen Doherty and Charisma Carpenter were all close contenders for the part of Christine. Kelly Rutherford got the part.

The green outfit worn by Parker Posey while on set is the same one worn by 'Courtney Cox' in the first movie. All sets for Stab 3 were replicas of the originals since the sets were destroyed after Scream wrapped.

David Arquette (Dwight 'Dewey' Riley), Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courtney Cox (Gale Weathers) and Liev Schreiber (Cotton Weary) are the only actors to appear in all 'Scream' films.

According to the commentary by Wes Craven, Angelina Tyler (Emily Mortimer) was supposed to be the second killer, as Roman Bridger's girlfriend and ex-classmate of Sidney from the first Scream, but the producers didn't like the idea.

Continuity error: Kincaid's collar after putting on his jacket in the "What's your favorite scary movie?" scene

Continuity error: When Sarah Darling is at Sunrise Studios while the office is empty, she is looking for the director of Stab 3, Roman Bridger. However when she looks into one of the office rooms, you can clearly hear her say Ronan, not Roman.

Continuity error: When Dewey first gets his gun out of the trailer, you can clearly see it's a Beretta 92-Compact in a black holster. But throughout the rest of the movie he uses a heavy duty snub (.44?) Revolver in a brown holster.

Continuity error: When Dewey fires the gun the first time (after they fall down the hill), he fires six times, empyting it. He doesn't reload, but still points it around, like it was loaded. Later on he fires the gun again (still no visible reload) three times and suddenly the gun is empty!

Continuity error: In the first killing scene the study which both Cotton and his girlfriend end up in has a white ceiling with a skylight. When Cotton is stabbed and looks up at his killer the ceiling is light orange with beams across it.

Continuity error: Roman Bridger's sideburns shorten and lengthen in the final scenes.

Continuity error: On the hot set of Sidney's room the table has its longest side flat against the wall with the bed. When Ghostface is thrown from the false door above the set, the table's rotated with its shortest edge against the wall with the bed. This was done so the bed was closer, so the killer could actually land on it.

Continuity error: When Sidney is struck down whilst trying to untie Dewey and Gale, she falls onto the middle of the rug. However she gets up from beside the sofa without rolling or moving from where she lands.

Continuity error: When the killer calls Sidney while she is at the police station, the word, "Nokia" is visible on the bottom of the phone. In the next scene it disappears, and then reappears in a later scene.

Continuity error: When Dewey unties Gale she lifts her and up and we see rope on her hand. In the next shot the rope is gone.

Continuity error: When Sidney jumps out of the window in the Sunrise Studios, and Dewey comes to her, there's a point where she is looking down, and the camera angle changes to show her looking right at Dewey.

Continuity error: When Gale reaches for the voice changer, she has blood on the top of her hand. When she puts the voice changer to her mouth, there is no blood.

Factual error: When Cotton is on two lines at the beginning of the film, he puts his portable phone on hold. The brand of cell phone he is using doesn't have a "hold" feature.

Continuity error: When Sidney goes through the door that leads to nowhere, she holds on and grips the wall frame. She could not have closed the door from her location because it was almost fully open and out of reach (though some viewers have claimed she could have used her foot).

Audio/visual unsynchronized: Every time the killer calls someone on their cell phone and hangs up, you hear a dial tone. Cell phones don't have dial tones.

Continuity error: Christine gets out of the shower and steps on the towel, but when she gets dressed and starts to walk down the hallway, her feet are still soaking wet.

Continuity error: In the opening scene when Cotton is murdered, the room he and Christine are in clearly has a skylight in the ceiling. But once Cotton is thrown over the desk and looking up at the killer, there is no such sky light. (This come from the fact two different opening scenes where shot and the end of the scene when Cotton is looking up at the killer took place in an entirely different room.)

Continuity error: Sidney is wearing black, high-heeled boots in the middle section of the film, but does not appear to be wearing them while waiting in the police station later in the film when the killer calls her. However, in the last part of the film, when Sidney arrives at the house, she is wearing boots again as she can be seen pulling not one but two guns from them.

# A scene between Sidney (Neve Campbell) and Tyson (Deon Richmond) was cut out of the film for pacing. It reportedly involved the two talking about the similarities between an "I Know What You Did Last Summer"-ish flick Tyson was describing out of the pages of the Hollywood Reporter to Stab III.

A scene in which Tyson explains that black people always get killed in scary movies, they never are the killer was in the trailer and in several T.V. spots but was not in the theatrical release.

R1 DVD includes an alternative ending and some deleted/alternative scenes:

    * Two different versions of Cotton Weary's pre-title sequence;

    * A scene taking place on the Stab 3 set, where we see the crew sitting together and talking with Dewey;

    * A scene showing Jenny McCarthy talking with a security guard for Sunrise Studios.

    * The alternate ending to the film involves Sydney hiding from the killer, while preparing to strike at the right moment. Only the beginning and end of the two endings are different.

The Showtime premiere uses the same sort of thing as "Scream," having a freeze frame for the more violent scenes.