3619. Scary Movie 5 (2013)

Starring: Ashley Tisdale, Simon Rex, Charlie Sheen

Director: Malcolm D. Lee

Running Time: 86 mins

Scary Movie 5 is an American film and the fifth in the Scary Movie series, following a couple who begin to experience a series of spooky happenings in their house, which they seek to uncover with the use of security cameras to see what happens while they sleep.

Doing the same thing five times over is always going to feel a bit tiring by the end. And while Scary Movie 5 isn’t a diabolically terrible addition to a franchise that’s never quite hit the heights of parody for me, this is a frustrating film to watch, straying into messy, episodic territory where the original Scary Movie managed to at least tell some semblance of a fun story.

I’ll say it now, though, I’ve never been a huge fan of any of the Scary Movies. The first one is okay, but the rest are just more of the same, only with less of the fun, low-budget thrills that made the original feel like a fan-made parody of popular horror movies. By the fifth one, however, the budget has gone up, but seems to only have been used on bigger (not necessarily better) CGI and more celebrity cameos.

Taking aim at the horror movies of the early 2010s – mostly 2012 – you’ll recognise a fair few gags, along with a tiresome string of references to Cabin In The Woods that’s in no way as fun as what was already a great horror parody. But for the most part, there aren’t many laughs to be had here, as Scary Movie 5 feels like a conveyor belt of lazy jokes that really lack the sharpness of the first film in the franchise.

Again, I wasn’t all too keen on the original, but it did tell a recognisable story that incorporated elements from different horror movies, but didn’t simply exist as a long line of blatant references to recent blockbusters. That’s where Scary Movie 5 really falls down.

What’s more, the higher-budget CGI really takes away from the silliness of the film, while its slew of celebrity cameos in a series of random and fairly disconnected episodes make the film almost indistinguishable from another awful film of 2013 – Movie 43. God knows Scary Movie 5 isn’t as bad as that, but there are certainly some rather depressing parallels between the two.

Overall, then, I really wasn’t keen on Scary Movie 5. Rightfully the last entry in an already tired franchise, this movie is a far cry from the original, lacking an entertaining and individual story, while struggling to drag any laughs out of you with its conveyor belt of dull parody jokes. So, that’s why I’m giving it a 4.7.