Movie review: 'Scary Movie 5'

20 April,2013 06:47 AM IST |   |  Mihir Fadnavis

Not only does the film not work as a parody but it also fails as a slapstick also


If you're looking for an outdated theme, stale jokes, tired sight gags, unfunny characters and clichéd plotting, then Scary Movie 5 is the movie for you. The fifth installment of the surprisingly profitable franchise has it all to compete in the pantheon of worst movie sequels ever made.

The fact that this movie has Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan is bad enough, but to see them create ‘comedy' is a whole new level of torture. The film opens with the two in bed, making love gymnasium style, a lame spoof of Paranormal Activity kicks in to foreshadow 75 minutes of sodomy of comedy. The plot, like the other films in the franchise is simply an assortment of various big banner films and exists sorely to make fun out of them in the most juvenile possible way.

Charlie's character dies and years later his children are found in a cabin in the woods as feral creatures like in Mama. Their foster parents take them home and install cameras in their house while a shrink is recruited to rid the house of any demons. The mother attempts to clear her mind, using Inception after being harassed by a Black Swan at ballet. Somehow the book from Evil Dead and the monkeys from Planet of the Apes make an appearance, to shove a final nail in the coffin of imaginative writing.

The first Scary Movie from the Wayans brothers was a great new spin on the spoof genre, coming at a time when the classic Airplane and the Naked Gun series seemed rusty. The franchise had a small breather when David Zucker, the director of those '80s and early '90s films stepped in. He went on to direct every subsequent Scary Movie and his latest effort is simply vile to its audience. The range of jokes include a kid sticking a popsickle up her anus, sniffing it, making a face and passing out. To think someone in a Hollywood movie studio thinks these jokes would entertain audiences is mind-boggling. Not only does the film not work as a parody but it also fails as a slapstick sight gag reel or even a permissible collection of fecal matter passing off as humour. To call Scary Movie 5 an effort in scraping the bottom of the barrel is giving it some sort of credit.

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