Synopsis: “A couple begin to experience some unusual activity after bringing their newborn son home from the hospital. With the help of home-surveillance cameras and a team of experts, they learn they’re being stalked by a nefarious demon.” (Rated PG-13; 1 hour, 25 minutes)
If you think I always find something positive to say about a movie, you are probably correct…until now. Since starting this blog at the start of 2013, I’ve seen and reviewed 44 movies. Until now the ones I’ve criticized the most have been:
–Movie 43: I still enjoyed segments and wasn’t bored, it was just a train wreck of a comedy overall.
–Spring Breakers: I may have hated this art-house piece, but I was willing to admit that James Franco was fantastic, and that it had enough interesting ideas to make up a great 10 minute short. I just couldn’t stand watching it stretched into a full length ego-stroking extravaganza for the filmmaker.
–Tyler Perry’s Temptation: I clearly thought it was unredeemable, awful movie-making, but it definitely fell into so-bad-it’s-great territory, especially if you have a friend excited to do a Statler & Waldorf routine with you.
(I welcome you to click on the link of any of the movies above to read their respective write-ups.)
Scary MoVie on the other hand may be so bad that the most clever thing about it is its title. (See that capitalized “V” referring to it being the 5th one in the franchise? Zing!) The previous movies in the franchise were certainly lowbrow entertainment ranging from somewhat funny to moderately amusing, so the bar wasn’t exactly set high. But this one was SO bad that even the opening scene with Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan was “What the hell are we about to watch?!” awful. First of all both Jared and Adi separately whispered that Lohan looks like she’s middle-aged, which is depressingly pathetic, but worst of all it just wasn’t funny. Please understand I enjoy dumb humor. I don’t need silly movies to be brilliantly clever like Airplane! or The Naked Gun to think they’re funny; I couldn’t stop laughing during the critically reviled MacGruber, and I thought all previous Scary Movie entries at least had some funny scenes. This. Just. Stank. In fact most of the fun I had watching this smelly turd of a movie was from the schadenfreude of Jared exclaiming, “Oh my God” to how bad it was, and Adi smacking her head against my shoulder and glaring at me for taking her to see it. (I will defend myself for a minute and mention that she decides what movies she wants to see based on watching the previews, so she made her own bed this time.)
There was one endless joke between rappers Snoop Dogg & Mac Miller playing themselves (yeah, we had no idea who Mac Miller was either) finding a cabin in the woods and then saying “It’s a Cabin In The Woods” over and over and over again, as if saying the movie title repetitively would somehow make you realize it’s a clever joke. News-flash, it’s not. It felt like a 2nd grader watched an episode of Family Guy, and then tried to write a script…badly. In fact the movie was so lousy that if 2nd graders DID write it, I would throw all of the compassion they teach us in nursing school out the window, and tell the children they have no future in comedy writing, and stomp on their dreams.
But here’s the crazy thing, it was written by two people who have each written CLASSIC comedies. Don’t believe me? Let’s play a little game called guess the comedy writer:
Contestant #1 wrote countless 80’s and 90’s classics. I may have never heard his name, but he deserves to be considered a comedy legend. He was a screenwriter for Bachelor Party, Real Genius, Police Academy, as well as some of the Naked Gun and Scary Movie sequels. His name is Pat Proft. Impressive, right?!
Contestant #2 wrote less movies, but they were genuine classics, and is absolutely a comedy household name. He wrote the hilarious Police Squad TV series that later became his own classic franchise, The Naked Gun. He also wrote Top Secret as well as the king of all slapstick comedies, Airplane! I’m referring to none other than the great David Zucker.
How in God’s name do these two comedy legends end up making a movie that challenges you to find a reason to laugh? How is it possible that these two comedic geniuses collaborated to write one of the least funny movies I’ve seen in ages? As Vizzini would say, INCONCEIVABLE! (Click on Vizzini’s name for a fun little Easter Egg.) Remember the OTHER horror movie spoof from earlier this year, A Haunted House? At the time I expected that to be awful and this to be the one worth waiting for; it turned out to be the other way around. A Haunted House in comparison was a comedic Oscar-winner. That movie managed to take some basic premises of horror movies (especially Paranormal Activity) and make a dumb, but entertaining comedy that made me laugh with plenty of its silly moments. This one spoofed not only Paranormal Activity but also Mama, The Evil Dead, and even the highly-recommended Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, and yet all of those movies added up to one unfunny 85 minutes which felt like 2 hours.
There were never any hilarious moments, but were there any jokes at all that made amused me? Sure, a few one-second gags that made me chuckle, that I’m tempted to spell out and intentionally spoil, but I won’t stoop so low on the off-chance you still see it. (I hate spoilers even more than I might detest any specific movies!)
Somehow though, seeing the pedigree of these writers when I returned from the theater only served to disappoint me further. The director on the other hand has been the epitome of mediocrity. With such forgettable films (that I’ve seen) as The Best Man, Undercover Brother, and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, he is truly someone to hire if you want to make a movie that nobody will remember the next day; and if that was the design of the producers, then job well done.
One thing I’ll note, Ben Cornish plays Leonardo DiCaprio in the terrible Inception portion of the spoof, and as you may have seen from the previews, he bears an striking resemblance to the once-teenage-heartthrob. Seriously, I’ll even link a photo of it for your own judgment here.
I must admit that I lied. There was one hilarious moment from the movie, but it was behind-the-scenes. As the movie began, in an almost empty Century City movie theater, a heavy middle-aged man grunted his way to our row and sat down directly next to Jared, in spite of 99% of the theater being completely vacant chairs. The astounded expression on Jared’s face was absolutely priceless. A scene like that in a lowbrow comedy would have been comedy-gold. With respect to Mr. Zucker and Mr. Proft, delving into real-life hilarious moments like these may be exactly what the doctor ordered to help find their inner comedian once again.
The movie was better than stepping on an actual pile of dog poop, but worse than A Haunted House and countless other movie satires that came before it.
Quality Rating: D- (It doesn’t get an F only because I prefer to leave wiggle room for a movie’s camera-work, editing and technical aspects which were at least competent within this stinker…but it’s a very generous D-)
Boaz Rating: D+ (Hey, schadenfreude goes a long way with this sadistic movie critic)
Boaz's Movie Obsession 