Scary Movie V (2013)
Certified: 16
Duration: 86 minutes
Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee
Starring: Ashley Tisdale, Simon Rex, Erica Ash, Ben Cornish, Darrell Hammond, Jerry O’Connell, J.P. Manoux, Molly Shannon, Sarah Hyland, Katrina Bowden, Tyler Posey, Bow Wow, Heather Locklear, Christina Ricci
As themselves: Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Snoop Dogg, Mike Tyson, Sheree Whitfield, Big Ang
KRS release
In the over-the-top and below-the-belt comedy that is Scary Movie V, Ashley Tisdale and Simon Rex play Jody and Dan, a young couple who have three children lumped on them by Dan’s brother who has just died.
The trio are two girls, Kathy and Lily (Gracie Whitton and Ava Kolker), who are a bit feral and talk with an evil spirit named Mama, while the baby seems to be normal.
Having seen this, the couple decide to wire up the house with all the cameras they can get their hands on to film any strange occurrence and see if they are being haunted or not. Meanwhile Maria (Lidia Porto), their housekeeper, also gets in on the paranormal business with strange doings including chickens and crosses.
Dan is a scientist who is focusing on primates and seeing if these can be developed further, while Jody is into ballet and trying to enter into a Swan Lake production, clashing with other ballerinas like Kendra and Heather (Erica Ash and Molly Shannon).
The Scary Movie franchise that kicked off in 2000 has managed against all odds to make it up to 2013 with a total budget for all five films of less than $180 million, and in return garnered back into its producers’ coffers about $850 million in cinema box-office receipts alone!
What keeps this franchise going? Its irreverent approach to horror movies, the utter silliness of it all and the way nothing is sacred and everything is parodied. Let’s face it, the horror genre is ripe for parody and while the Scary Movies do not always hit the mark, they end up being so ridiculously over-the-top and puerile that they have managed to keep their audience coming back or garnered new audiences each time for what is now a fifth helping.
The fifth instalment kicks off with Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan in bed, about to have sex as they play their real selves. After this, things get weird, weirder and weirdest and never let up.
The first film in the franchise was a spoof of Scream (1996), but this time around the spoof is on horror films in general, as nothing in this genre is sacred. Thus you have the obvious parody of The Mama, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Paranormal Activity, the very recent Evil Dead gets a nod while the likes of Black Swan, Inception, Sinister and even non-genre films such as The Help also get a kicking!
Insert also a character called Christian Grey, and the shades have gotten thicker!
Oh, and the film is also narrated by a Morgan Freeman imitator.
The film is a collection of hit-and-miss jokes. Highlights have to be the on-screen moments that are shared between Sheen and Lohan, that hit the mark most of all as these seem to be mocking their own real-life run-ins with the law and the media!
Some of the jokes are simply gross out for grossness’s sake.
Scary Movie franchise fans know what to expect, and that is what director Malcolm D. Lee serves, with all kinds of dollops and extras in a film that the fans will like.