Although, to be fair, I actually kind of hope the world forgets about it. (The film wasn’t screened for critics, and the studio, Dimension Films, didn’t offer any showtimes on Thursday night, either, to try to control bad reviews from seeping out.) I hope it doesn’t make any money, and I hope we don’t have another sequel, and I hope everyone involved in it is ignored by Hollywood forever. If I could somehow clone myself and put a version of me outside every single movie theater showing this movie and yell at everyone buying a ticket for this movie, I would. It would be my life’s work.
The initial “Scary Movie” films had some kind of very sparse, but still present, narrative, which followed teenager Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris, of “Yogi Bear,” “Take Me Home Tonight,” “What’s Your Number?,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked,” and “The Dictator”) up through 2006’s “Scary Movie 4.” But that was seven years ago, and Faris has gone on to other things. So “Scary Movie V,” then, begins with an all-new storyline, which—of course—manages to rip off a number of different scary, and not scary, films.
The main narrative copies this year’s “Mama,” with other nods to “Black Swan,” “Paranormal Activity,” “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “Inception,” and even last week’s “Evil Dead”—and apparently, just mentioning these movies is supposed to be enough to send us into paroxysms of giggles. And, if that’s not enough, don’t despair! The film also has Charlie Sheen making a fool of himself, and a bizarre parody of child reality star Honey Boo-Boo, and … well, I don’t even want to type anymore. I just want to stop thinking about this movie.
But, I’ll soldier on for you, dear reader. The story focuses on the aftermath of a tryst between certainly-hit-rock-bottom celebrities Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan, who, after a night together, are attacked by demonic forces. Lohan becomes possessed and kills Sheen, leaving his children to fend for themselves and run away to an abandoned cabin. After the children are found, they’re sent to live with Charlie’s brother Dan (Simon Rex, of “Project X”) and his lady friend Jody (Ashley Tisdale, of “Aliens in the Attic”), who then realize the children’s mother is haunting them. Whatever to do!
So all of this is a chance for some very, very crude jokes, mostly focused on sex and drugs and bathroom humor, with some racist stuff thrown in for good measure (Dan and Jody’s Hispanic maid, for example, is hairy, overweight, and obsessively religious). The “Scary Movie” films have never been high-brow stuff, but these “jokes” are impressively bad, like a woman having sex with a microwave, barbs at Lohan for having sex with Sheen, comedian Katt Williams telling Dan and Jody that an “STD is the worst thing you can have” … the idiocy is just never-ending.
Of course, the film is mercifully short—only 85 minutes, and that’s including the credits. But why? Just why? “Scary Movie V” raises lots of idiotic questions, but I would be happy if I never had to think about this film ever again. Never, ever.
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