Review 205: "Scary MoVie"

"Look, they still throw their shit."

Here We Go Again

      Scary MoVie is the fifth film in the Scary Movie franchise and the first installment in seven years. This time around, it's mostly a spoof of the Paranormal Activity series and of Mama, with the Evil Dead remake, Black Swan and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Because those are all horror movies! The film is directed by Malcolm D. Lee (Undercover Brother) and written by Pat Proft (The Star Wars Holiday Special) and, sigh, David Zucker (Airplane!) and follows Jody (Ashley Tisdale) and Dan (Simon Rex) as they adopt the children of Dan's dead brother Charlie Sheen and movie into a new house. Once home, they find out that strange things are happen around their house, as the girls (Gracie Whitton and Ava Kolker) begin talking about the mysterious "Mama". As Dan's job at a research facility grows more troubling, Jody befriends fellow dancer Kendra (Erica Ash) and uncover the truth behind Mama.

"No, not another High School Musical!"

Do I Even Need to Say It?

      Look, do I really need to write a review telling you how awful this movie is? Do you really need to be told that the fifth Scary Movie film, which I will not pronounce any way other than Scary Mo-Five-ie, is about as funny as something that's not funny (Like that joke)? I get why this was made. Oh, I do. But I still don't get why people pay to watch these things. I'm not even sure why I used up on of my Netflix spots on this thing. I have barely seen any of the other films. I have seen half of Scary Movie 4, and granted that was way more awful than this, but this pretty much kills any chance of me seeing the previous films. I can't say that I hate Scary Mo-Five-ie. It's not funny, but it isn't painful, it isn't offensive and it isn't with one or two laughs. Basically, this movie is entirely made better by the fact that it's not A Haunted House. The movie is just so laugh-free and harmless that it's almost nonexistent. It's not bad or offensive enough to be hate and it's certainly not good. Scary Mo-Five-ie's biggest problem is just how shockingly lazy it is.

Boo!

      The actual depths of Scary Mo-Five-ie's laziness are actually pretty impressive. The film really had to try hard to be this lazy. The most surprising thing about this movie is it's almost mythical run time. I have hear of this happening before, but had never seen it myself. The movie is said to run at a hour and 25 minutes, with credits. Fifteen full minutes of credits. FIFTEEN. MINUTES. OF CREDITS. The movie actually is just over a hour long. Sure, there are outtakes in the credits, but fifteen minutes worth. And it took them seven years to release this movie? On top of that, the movie pretty heavily parodies Mama, thanks to some reshoots early in the year, just because. It also parodies the Evil Dead remake, which was release just a week before this film came out. They were parodying the trailer to the remake of a movie. I'll just let that sink in. It's so lazy, that there's even a part that is censored. Swears are bleeped out. Gotta have that PG-13. Instant success with a PG-13. I could go on. About the random scene where a group of vacuum cleaners throw a pool party. About the lazy stereotyping that does even feel like they were trying to be offensive, just copying what other films do. About the fact that's it's actually called Scary MoVie. But, it's just not worth it.

I have no words.

The Verdict

      Look, I could really care less. This barely registers as a movie. Even direct-to-DVD movies would think this one is lame. Clocking in a barely a theatrical length, padded with ludicrous amounts of credits and random cheap gags, Scary Mo-Five-ie is basically the definition of cash grab. It's not funny, but not painfully unfunny. It's stupid, but not offensively stupid. It's not awful, it's not good. It's the dark matter of films. I know it's there, but it's like it isn't. Scary MoVie gets 2 stars out of 6.,