Movie Info
Movie Name: Scary Movie 5
Studio: Brad Gray Pictures
Genre(s): Comedy
Release Date(s): April 12, 2013
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Mama knows best!
When Charlie (Charlie Sheen) disappears after a night with Lindsay Lohan (Lindsay Lohan), his three children are found in the woods six months later by drug dealers (Snoop Dogg and Mac Miller). Now, Dan (Simon Rex) and his wife Jody (Ashley Tisdale) are forced to rehabilitate the children who appear to be followed by a strange creature they call Mama. As Jody tries to return to the ballet that she loves, Jody and her friend Kendra (Erica Ash) must seek out the book hidden at a cabin in the woods while Dan works to make a superhuman ape. As Mama grows more powerful, stopping her might be impossible and Jody’s dreams of dancing the Black Swan might never happen.
I know who killed me!?!?
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee, Scary Movie 5 (stylistically presented as Scary MoVie) is the follow-up to Scary Movie 4 of 2006. The parody film was the least profitable Scary Movie to date and generally panned by the critics.
It has been a long time since a Scary Movie hit the theaters…and it appeared that the franchise was dead. When Scary Movie V was originally conceived, it was meant to be more of a Scream IV parody with the Waynes Brothers returning to the franchise. Scream IV fizzled at the theater and the Waynes Brothers left to do A Haunted House. Scary Movie 5 lost most of its cast including series lead Anna Faris who was pregnant at the time of shooting, and Faris was replaced by Tinsdale.
Inception…ooooohhhhh, scary!
It really helps when you have seen most of the movies being parodied in this film…but it doesn’t make it a good movie. Zucker has lost most of his mojo from his early films like Airplane! and The Naked Gun. The parodies of movies like Mama, Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Evil Dead work in the context of the film, but are held together so flimsily that it might as well have been a sketch movie. Even though the film is entitled “Scary Movie”, the makers keep insisting on trying to incorporate non-scary movies like Black Swan, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Inception into their plots…which don’t really work.
This really is as scary as the countless time devoted to the pool cleaner in Paranormal Activity 2.
Regardless what you said about past incarnations of Scary Movie, Anna Faris gave herself completely to the role. Tinsdale seems to have fun and actually is ok since the movie requires little script and acting, but it would have been good to have Faris back to take the stink out a little bit. The movie is full of cameos including Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Mike Tyson, Snoop Dog, Mac Miller, Real Housewife Sheree Whitfield, Mob Wife Big Ang, Bow Wow, Heather Locklear, Jasmine Guy, Darrell Hammond, Jerry O’Connell, Molly Shannon, Kendra Wilkinson, Katt Williams, Usher, and Kate Walsh…despite the “star” power, the movie sputters.
The movie (like most of the Scary Movies) feels really rushed. With comedy shows like South Park being able to be topical quickly, the parody movie seems to be falling behind. The flood of these movies in the ’00s really hurt the genre and made these films a dime-a-dozen. With a relatively low production cost, Scary Movie might go on despite the low box office returns…if not something will resurface.
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