In Scream, audiences learn of Maureen Prescott's murder before her life, despite her daughter, Sidney Prescott, being the series' reigning final girl. Indirectly causing Billy and Stu's bloody rampage in Scream and the slasher sprees that follow in Scream 2 and Scream 3, the franchise depicts Maureen as a cheating wife, failed actor and Woodsboro's "slut" who -- in Billy and Stu's words -- had her death coming to her. While franchise writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven showed it was the town that erroneously saw Maureen this way, she still became the series' slut-shamed scapegoat.
However, there was a vital chance in Scream 3 to show a side of Maureen's story that would have deepened viewers' understanding of her character. Centering the third film amidst Hollywood gave the plot a chance to really explain what happened in Maureen's two-year period as actor Rina Reynolds. Instead, it is exposition fodder for her son's bloodlust and wrath.
Viewers first learn about Maureen's death at the beginning of Scream when an ambitious Gale Weathers compares Casey's recent bloodbath to that of Maureen's murder a year ago. From there, the film directly or indirectly references Maureen's murder. It even goes as far as to show how the town -- via a Heathers-channeling cheerleader -- gossip about Sidney, calling her "a slut, just like her mother." As Sidney's still processing her mother's brutal killing and the new trauma of a classmate being "sliced and diced" like her mother, even her best friend Tatum Riley judgementally reminds her that her mother slept around a lot. By the end of the film, Stu and Billy remind Sidney of her mother's affairs again. They manically explain that this was why they needed to murder Maureen -- for causing families to fall apart by her actions.
The men in these affairs -- specifically Billy's father, Hank Loomis -- weren't targeted by Ghostface. Stu and Billy's amoral ramblings only apply to Maureen, not the equally cheating Hank Loomis, who is presumably still alive in the franchise. However, Scream 3 complicated Stu and Billy's misogynistic M.O. through the compelling reveal of Maureen's son, Roman. The film surprised fans by explaining that Roman actually planted the seed in Billy and Stu's women-hating skulls to murder Maureen.
While Scream 3 has many flaws -- especially due to its inability to show much gore due to filming during 1999's Columbine High School massacre -- revealing that Maureen had a deeply complicated and secretive life in Hollywood was certainly not one of them. While it's still deeply disturbing to have a franchise centered on a rejected son's quest to destroy his mother, it opened up the realm to critically showcase that as a kind of villainy. Scream 3 failed to look its Norman Bates-looking face in the mirror for a film series that likes to break down horror tropes. Perhaps the strangest part of Roman's storyline is when Sidney holds his hand as he dies in her arms -- as opposed to finding another umbrella to stab through Roman's heart, a la Billy Loomis, for causing all her friends and mother to die.
However, there's an overlooked part about Roman's vengeance quest that could have taken over the film's plot entirely. In Scream 3, the audience tragically learns that Maureen was gang-raped at one of Stab movie producer John Milton's parties, hosted by Sunrise Studios -- the same studio where Hank Loomis worked. She discovered she was pregnant after the rape and gave up her son Roman for adoption. These events caused Maureen to leave her budding Hollywood career and return to Woodsboro, where she had an unhappy marriage.
The audience learns about Maureen's rape through the perspective of (one of) Maureen's rapist(s), John Milton. "This is not the city for innocence," Milton says, which makes Roman's later murder of him terrifically sweet and poignant. For a small moment, it seems like someone is killing for Maureen, not because of her. In fact, the only time audiences hear Maureen's voice is during Milton's death. Instead of inspiring Billy and Stu to kill his mom, Roman could have led a #MeToo-inspired film filled with Hollywood executives facing Roman's wrath.
Instead, Scream 3 sees Roman using Maureen as a literal prop. He tells Sidney that he found their mother, but she wanted nothing to do with him or her trauma-filled Hollywood past. Out of jealousy that Sidney had time with their mother, he attempts to use a body prop bag and recordings of Maureen's voice to make Sid think she's losing her mind and/or is being haunted by her mother. Neither is true, and while Maureen's ghost lingers in each of the franchise's films, she's yet to appear on-screen. Of all the times where a well-placed flashback could have worked, it would have been Scream 3. If Maureen has to be dead, she at least earned the right to have her perspective told -- not John Milton, a man who is literally making money off the legacy of Maureen's death with the Stab franchise.
It's especially worth noting that Scream 3 was produced by Hollywood's infamous sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein. It likely limited just how controversial the film's B-plot line about sexual predators could be in 2000 -- the then-height of Weinstein's powers. The fact that this throughline was approved in the movie at all is interesting, to say the least. However, maybe the joke is still on Maureen. Despite the film portraying Maureen as a misunderstood victim, and not shying away from how Hollywood profited off her story, Scream 3 profits from a rape narrative that never put its survivor at the center of the story. In four Scream films, even Billy's mother got a shining role as an avenging and unhinged serial killer before Sid's mom -- the crux of the franchise -- had any lines.