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Scary Movie V is Frighteningly Unfunny

Not since Spielbergs Lincoln has a film ... just kidding. The studio that made Scary Movie V had NO faith in the film whatsoever. There were no early critics screenings held. The Powers That Be didnt even allow those word-of-mouth 10 p.m. and midnight screenings the night before last Fridays official release that have become the custom with so many new releases these days. Which is why through a series of misfortunes, mishaps, and missed opportunities late last week, I found myself in a darkened theater early last Friday morning watching Scary Movie V. With me were a smattering of random people who apparently were there punishing themselves for playing hooky from their day jobs or college classes. These sad souls were the movie-going equivalent of that self-flagellating, albino monk in The DaVinci Code. I was no better. But dont judge me. Dear readers, I have been to funerals that were a LOT less sad than this mostly laughless 85 minutes. And Im talking funerals of people who died young, way young, well before they should have been taken from this Earth. You thought the Die Hard franchise had run out of steam earlier in the year? Wait until you get a load of this latest Scary Movie flick. Yikes! This was never a great franchise to begin with. But at least the previous movies had the nutty Anna Faris doing her best Julie Haggerty throughout. In Scary Movie V, poor Ashley Tisdale inherits the female lead in this extended spoof of recent horror flicks and she really struggles. And when you are counting on cameos by the likes of Snoop Dogg and Heather Locklear for chuckles, you know you arent far off from Dr. Drew-Celebrity Rehab territory. Ill give the film, directed by Malcolm Lee and co-written by David Zucker and Pat Proft, credit for parodying the new Evil Dead remake that has only been in theaters a couple of weeks.All concernedmust have seen a very early cut of that flick. So, at least theyll have something to take away from this. And I concede that Zucker and Proft are perhaps most successful in mining Black Swan for a few grins, including aclever throwaway bit in which director Lee is able to mimic Swan director Darren Aronofskys freaky, multi-cameraway of filming even the most mundane scene - in this case, a completely unimportant walk-up to a recital hall that ends up being shown from every possible angle and in reverse. But spoofing the Paranormal Activity films as Scary Movie V does is about as low as you can get in comedy right now. And an opening sequence involving Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan making a raunchy sex tape is more sad than funny, especiallywhen you realize that these two once made films like Platoon, Wall Street and Mean Girls.

Avoid this one at all costs, folks.