Scary Movie 5

 

When did film parodies actually stop being parodies, and simply become recreations of hit films that just happen to have some bathroom and dick humor added to the scenes?  Actually, I think it was right around the time the original Scary Movie hit back in 2000.  So, you can't really blame Scary Movie 5 for not breaking tradition.  You can, however, blame it for being lazy, incompetently made, poorly written, and a total dead zone of a comedy.  Even with a running time of just 75 minutes (plus an extended 5 minutes of outtakes and bloopers during the end credits to stretch the film to the minimum feature length of 80), there were many moments where I felt trapped while watching the movie, and felt as if it would never end.

The film opens with Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan giving pointless cameos as themselves as they prepare to make a sex tape together.  The scene is supposed to show both Sheen and Lohan being good sports and parodying their real-life problems, but it's really kind of depressing, and only ends up showing how low they will go for money.  Anyway, it turns out the house they're filming the sex tape in is haunted.  Lohan becomes possessed by a demon, and kills Charlie.  We then get a Narration, provided by a voice who sounds an awfully lot like Morgan Freeman.  In fact, watching the film, I thought it actually was him, and was going to knock the film for not giving him anything funny to do.  I learned from a friend, however, that the narration is actually provided by Josh Robert Thompson, who does a dead-on impersonation.  Still doesn't excuse the movie for not giving him anything funny to do.  Through the Narrator, we learn that the demon that possessed Lindsay Lohan kidnapped Charlie's three children, and took them to a cabin in the woods.

The children are discovered by Snoop Dogg (yet another cameo), who returns them to society.  The kids are placed in the care of Charlie's brother, Dan (Simon Rex), and his punk rocker girlfriend, Jody (Ashley Tisdale).  They move to a house in the suburbs, where they quickly learn that the demonic entity that was taking care of the children while they were living alone in the woods is now haunting their home.  They set up a high tech video security system so that they can record the paranormal activity in their home.  Meanwhile, Dan gets a job at a science lab, where he works on an experiment with a highly intelligent ape named Caesar.  As for Jody, she takes up ballet, and winds up getting the lead in a production of Swan Lake, which puts her at odds with rival dancer, Kendra (Erica Ash), and the alcoholic aging former star of the dance group, Heather (Molly Shannon).  There's also a Book of Evil worked into the plot, which may hold the secret to destroying the evil demon that haunts their home.

So, Scary Movie 5 is essentially a mash up of Mama, Paranormal Activity, Black Swan, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and even the Evil Dead remake from just one week ago.  If you're wondering how the movie can parody a film that had not come out yet while it was being made, supposedly there were massive reshoots on this thing the past couple months, and they based a lot of the Evil Dead stuff on the trailers.  For good measure, the movie also includes small nods to Sinister, Inception, and 50 Shades of Gray.  That's an impressive array of targets for one spoof to be taking aim at.  Don't be too impressed, however, as it misses on every gag it tries to squeeze from its sources.  This movie's main source of satire is to take recognizable scenes from the many movies it takes inspiration from, and then fill them with jokes about sex, bodily fluids, or lame sight gags.  You can easily find more cutting satire in just about any average issue of Mad Magazine.

Not only is the movie just plain not funny, it's badly made as well.  One thing that annoyed me throughout the film is how the lips of the actors often don't synch to the dialogue.  This may be the result of the film going through extensive reshoots early in the year to throw in the references to Mama and Evil Dead.  Regardless, it was a big distraction for me.  Another distraction are the horrible special effects.  Yes, I know, it's a low budget spoof movie, and I should probably go easy on it.  But, I'm sorry, if you're going to expect audiences to pay full ticket price, the least you can do is get an ape suit that doesn't look like it came from someone's attic.  You also get the sense watching this film that director Malcolm D. Lee has no sense of comic timing, given how his scenes often have no pay off.  Of course, anyone who has seen his much better spoof film, Undercover Brother, knows this is not true.  Maybe he was having an off day?

 

Scary Movie 5 doesn't seem to be trying in any way, which makes it all the more depressing of an experience.  I would say that maybe really little kids will find it funny, but they shouldn't be watching this movie anyway, as it pushes the limits of a PG-13 with its gross out gags and sexual references.  It's too dumb and juvenile for adults, yet too vulgar for kids.  It's a movie made for no one, and therefore, no one should see it.

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