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Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed Scary Movie 3 and 4, laughing out loud several times during both films. But whatever enjoyment I once derived from the series has vanished with Scary Movie 5, or Scary MoVie as it's officially entitled. The need for a Scary Movie 5 is highly questionable in the first place, as the series is no longer relevant. After all, seven years have elapsed since 2006's Scary Movie 4, and, in the interim, the horror genre has been lampooned with more creativity in semi-comedic films like Cabin in the Woods and Zombieland. Plus, Scary Movie 5's main target is the Paranormal Activity franchise, which was already sent up in A Haunted House a few months beforehand. It shouldn't come as any surprise to learn that Scary Movie 5 is not just awful, but offensively so; an obnoxious waste of time and money that wouldn't even be able to entertain the lowest common denominator.
After the mysterious death of Charlie Sheen (played by himself), his three orphaned kids are found in a cabin in the woods. Retrieved in a feral condition, they're adopted by their uncle Dan (Simon Rex) and his girlfriend Jody (Ashley Tisdale). The children claim to have a supernatural protector known as "Mama," which unnerves their new guardians as odd things begin to happen around the house. Setting up security cameras and walking around with camcorders to capture everything that goes down in their residence, Dan and Jody eventually call in a psychic to deal with the situation. Meanwhile, Jody is dealing with a stressful upcoming ballet performance, and Dan has problems at the genetics lab where he experiments with chimps.
Aside from the obvious Paranormal Activity spoofing, Scary Movie 5 also sends up Mama, which was released a short three months before this dogshit polluted multiplexes. Also parodied is 2013's Evil Dead, which was released just a week prior. (It wouldn't be surprising if Scary Movie 5 did in fact start production just a week before its scheduled release date, since it's so sloppy.) Bizarrely, the film also targets internet memes for no discernible reason, while 50 Shades of Grey is spoofed despite not even being a movie yet. Other targets include Inception and Black Swan, even though those movies came out three years ago, while Rise of the Planet of the Apes gets a look in, just because. The script for Scary Movie 5 is actually credited to David Zucker and Pat Proft, both of whom contributed to The Naked Gun. (Zucker was also responsible for Airplane!, arguably the funniest film of all time.) Now, the pair could not devise a funny joke at gunpoint. At one stage, a character has a massive bout of flatulence that sends people flying all over the place, and the narrator complains about the smell. Are you sure you want to watch this movie now?
The biggest issue with Scary Movie 5 is that it simply does not feel like a cohesive movie - it feels like a series of YouTube skits strung together without any thought towards narrative cohesion or dramatic momentum. The last two instalments were pretty much a string of skits as well, but at least they made sense and built up to their respective endings. Here, the climax takes all of two minutes and happens completely out of the blue. There's no care or passion behind the picture - it's as if the filmmakers were rushing through every set-up, wanting to get it done as soon as possible and not caring about how slipshod their work might be. And get this: for whatever reason, when a couple of characters are driving between locations, we see a few odd shots of an empty toy car. It looks like it's meant to be the set-up for some kind of comedic payoff, but the moment never arrives. Is the toy car meant to be a gag, or is it meant to look real? Was the film made on such a cheap budget that they couldn't afford to shoot a proper car driving by? What the fuck is this shit?
Scary Movie 5 is not just unfunny but obnoxiously unfunny, with failed gags that not only fall flat but outright offend. The filmmakers must have purposely set out to make an unwatchable finished product because no writers or directors in their right minds could deem this material tolerable by any stretch of the imagination. In the entire film, I chuckled twice. I did not laugh out loud at any point - I just chuckled. Hence, there are maybe 30 seconds of worthwhile footage in the 90-minute movie, and that estimate is generous. Terry Crews even shows up at one stage, only to score absolutely no laughs at all. Crews has been in his fair share of bad movies, but even at his worst, he's usually funny. But not here. Scary Movie 5 is such a black hole of awfulness that not even Terry Crews can make successful jokes within it. There's actually barely enough material here to justify a feature-length runtime due to the threadbare plot, hence it ends about the 75-minute mark, after which a horrendous 15-minute blooper reel unfolds over the closing credits. I worked at a cinema that screened this malarkey, and at no point did I witness a single patron sit through it all. Everyone wanted to leave. On more than one occasion, I heard customers complaining about how terrible the movie was. Poor souls.
Perhaps the film's woeful disposition can be attributed to one thing: up to 70% of the content was shot two months ahead of its scheduled release. Reportedly, the original cut was essentially a different flick altogether, but reshoots occurred in February 2013 to change the storyline completely. If that's not a red flag, I do not know what is. Scary Movie 5 goes beyond the bottom of the barrel; it's disgracefully stupid and fucking retarded. Even the brain-dead would be capable of making a better movie. A few months ago, I proclaimed that Movie 43 was the worst motion picture of 2013, believing it to be scientifically impossible for any movie to be worse. Lo and behold, I must eat my words: Scary Movie 5 is worse than Movie 43. Do not see this movie under any circumstances. It will cause you physical pain.
ZERO FUCKING STARS
