Scary Movie 5 * (2013, Ashley Tisdale, Simon Rex) – Movie Review

None of the cast members from the previous films returns in this appallingly slack and shoddy fourth sequel to the 2000 movie that was ironically advertised way back then as ‘no mercy, no shame, no sequel.’ It’s the first instalment not to feature Cindy Campbell (played by Anna Faris) or Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall).

This time Ashley Tisdale and Simon Rex star as a dim suburban couple who move into a haunted house with their possessed adopted nieces and nephew.

The couple begin to experience some unusual paranormal activity and use home-surveillance cameras to find they’re being stalked by a nefarious demon.

So it’s easy to imagine the blockbusters of the last few years that the film parodies and predict all the jokes it tries to make out of them. It’s all that stale and mirthless.

Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan only add to their career troubles by sharing the opening scene in which they get together to make a sex tape with over 20 cameras beside Sheen’s bed and Lohan ends up being arrested again. Enterprisingly, the simultaneously released The Evil Dead is sent up from the trailer and Fifty Shades of Grey is spoofed even though it hasn’t been made yet!

The film is directed by Malcolm D. Lee, but David Zucker is really the man behind it. He returns to the franchise as writer, with partner Pat Proft, re-writing a previous script. But after Lee finished film and left to make The Best Man Holiday, Zucker then spent two months directing additional scenes and re-shoots which make up more than half the movie. Zucker then supervised the final edit. The Wayans Brothers declined to be involved and Marlon instead did his own horror movie spoof A Haunted House (2013) which started a franchise with a sequel in 2014.

It’s the longest break in the release of Scary Movie films at almost seven years. It’s amazing that they’ve got to Number 5 but, as it’s the least financially successful entry in the series, this may be the end. Or perhaps not because even so, it was still a commercially successful venture. It cost only $20million and made $32million in the US alone and over $78 million worldwide.

http://derekwinnert.com/scary-movie-classic-film-review-621/

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1177

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