Walking into the dimly lit, deluxe XD theater of the Blue Oaks Cinema left me writhing in anticipation for the fifth installment of the Scary Movie series. The Scary Movies have a reputation for being hackneyed, but I thought I’d give this one a chance. Unfortunately, I might as well have just demanded a refund — this movie was terrible in every sense of the word.
The film’s premise revolves around Dan (Simon Rex) and Jody (Ashley Tisdale), a married couple who recently adopt the estranged children of Dan’s brother. Upon moving to their new, expensive home, Dan and Jody are faced with a series of cryptic events that push them into relying on psychics, spells, and a crazy Spanish-speaking housemaid to cure their household of the occult.
The only enjoyable part of the movie was the fact that Ashley Tisdale was playing a lead outside of her usual personas from Disney’s “Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and “High School Musical.” The role of the caustic, indifferent housewife of a dysfunctional Ape researcher was a stark contrast from the more family-friendly characters of her Disney days, and she fit the role fairly well. It’s really interesting to watch how she expands her horizons.
Everywhere else, however, the film falls flatter than a deflated balloon. Where are the laughs? The same place as the comedic value of this film; absolutely nowhere. Not even in the tiniest of crevices can you find a microbe of laughing matter in the movie. As hard as the filmmakers try with the fact that the housemaid sleeps with vacuums, Dan fails at developing intelligent apes, and the children always get hurt by everything in the house, it just does not work. It’s like they watered-down “Saturday Night Live” and clashed it with the potty-humor comedic taste of a middle school boy.
It only gets worse from there with the flow and direction of the movie. The film kicks off with Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen parodying “Paranormal Activity.” This scene actually could have had the most comedic potential of the entire movie; two of Hollywood’s most notoriously drugged out celebrities in one bed being haunted at the same time? Imagine the possibilities! But no, it just has to end in order to make room for the most banal of plots in the history of Scary Movie. Furthermore, there is a scene including Snoop Dogg/Lion and Mac Miller, which ends up making more sense than Lohan and Sheen’s scene as one would discern towards the movie’s final few minutes, but its placement is choppy and confusing.
Overall, Scary Movie V would not even be on a scale from how painfully unfunny it is. It would have been nice to see the filmmakers learn from the failures of the previous Scary Movies and implement better strategies into this one, but it obviously wasn’t executed. As tasteless as the most bland of waters, this movie is definitely not a must-see.
by KAVLEEN SINGH
