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WEINSTEIN COMPANY

MOVIE INFO

Director:
Malcolm D. Lee
Cast:
Simon Rex, Ashley Tisdale, Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Katt Williams, Darrell Hammond, Snoop Dogg, Mac Miller
Writing Credits:
David Zucker, Pat Proft

Tagline:
Evil is coming. Bring protection.

Synopsis:
A couple begin to experience some unusual activity after bringing their lost nieces and nephew home. With the help of home-surveillance cameras, they learn they're being stalked by a nefarious demon.

Box Office:
Budget
$20 million.
Opening Weekend
$14.157 million on 3402 screens.
Domestic Gross
$32.014 million.

MPAA:
Rated PG-13

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio:
English DTS-HD MA 5.1
French Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English
Spanish
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
English

Runtime: 88 min.
Price: $39.99
Release Date: 8/20/2013

Bonus:
• Extended and Deleted Scenes
• Sneak Peeks
• DVD Copy


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Panasonic 50" TH-50PZ77U 1080p Plasma Monitor; Sony STR-DG1200 7.1 Channel Receiver; Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-Ray Player using HDMI outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Kenwood 1050SW 150-watt Subwoofer.

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Scary MoVie 5 [Blu-Ray] (2013)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (August 14, 2013)

From 2000 through 2006, we got four entries in the Scary Movie franchise. When I reviewed Scary Movie 4 in 2006, I assumed we’d get a fifth flick in a couple of years. As I stated then, these films cost little to make and did reasonably well at the box office, so a continuation of the series seemed logical.

I was correct that we’d get another release, but it took a lot longer than I expected. Scary Movie V - or “Scary MoVie, as billed on the posters – showed up in 2013, a whopping seven years after the last film.

Did anything change in the seven years between movies? Not really; MoVie came with a new director but featured the same writers as well as a lot of the actors from the prior flicks – and a whole lot of the same lowest common denominator humor.

After a mysterious force kills Charlie Sheen (himself), his three children go missing. After a couple of stoners (Snoop Dogg and Mac Miller) discover Kathy (Gracie Whitton), Lily (Ava Kolker) and Aidan (Dylan and Ryan Morris) in a cabin, the kids wind up with Charlie’s brother Dan (Simon Rex) and his wife Jody (Ashley Tisdale). She greets this task without enthusiasm, especially given the creepy nature of the youngsters.

From there – oh, who cares? The flick barely attempts a plot, as MoVie simply uses this framework as an excuse to parody a variety of modern horror films as well as efforts such as Black Swan and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

This creates a change from prior Scary Movie efforts and makes this one closer to spoofs like Date Movie and Epic Movie, parodies that cast an extremely wide net. Whereas the prior Scary Movies tended to focus on a couple of flicks to mock, Date/Epic/etc. took a loose framework and made fun of whatever pop culture topics they chose.

While I never found the Scary Movies amusing, I did at least think they stood above Date/Epic/etc. due to that concentration. Junk like Epic Movie and Date Movie just appeared to pick subject matter at random and showed virtually no cleverness.

I guess writers David Zucker and Pat Proft took notes at those flicks, for MoVie definitely follows the “broad brush” pattern. I guess it focuses most on Swan, Paranormal Activity and Mama, but those aren’t especially consistent, and the movie often takes on spoofs almost at random.

This is not what we call a change for the better. Granted, I didn’t find a lot of laughs in the prior films, but at least they showed greater coherence. MoVie often feels like a whole bunch of gags cobbled together with next to no forethought, as the filmmakers simply latch onto as many crass sights as they can conjure and hope that we’ll find merriment.

Others might, but I don’t. If the film attempted any cleverness, I might discover something worthwhile, but instead, it simply throws scores of gags related to violence and/or sex. Those seem to be the filmmakers’ go-to laugh-prompters: when in doubt, see someone punched in the head or kicked in the nuts.

Or give us cheap sexual humor. Repeat the word “penis” as much as possible, or show children with dildos. Hey, let’s combine the two, such as a scene in which a five-year-old shoves a popsicle up her own butt.

Really? This is what passes for humor? And from Zucker, someone who helped create a mix of much loved comedy films? I admit I never much cared for Airplane!, but I loved Ruthless People, and even I think Airplane! looks like utter genius compared to this crap.

Nothing works here. The actors run on autopilot, and the film rambles from one moronic spoof to another without logic or coherence. If there’s something positive to find here, I can’t locate it; even though I wasn’t fond of the first four films, they worked better than this witless atrocity.

Footnote: MoVie comes with one of the longest credit sequences I’ve ever seen. The flick lasts 1:28:07 but the credits start at 1:13:15! That means we get almost 15 minutes of credits, which equals about 17 percent of the movie’s whole length. These do include copious bloopers and a post-credits sequence, but it’s still nuts to find such a long run after the film’s end.


The Blu-ray Grades: Picture B/ Audio B+/ Bonus D+

Scary Movie V appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The flick came with good but not exceptional visuals.

Sharpness was usually fine. Some wides and interiors appeared a bit tentative, and I never thought the image boasted excellent clarity. Still, it appeared reasonably concise and created no prominent distractions. The image lacked jaggies or moiré effects, and I noticed no edge haloes or print flaws.

In terms of colors, MoVie tended toward a low-key sepia feel, though it threw out some teal at times, too. The hues looked decent within those parameters and seemed appropriate for the film’s visual design. Blacks were reasonably dark and tight, while shadows displayed pretty good delineation. Nothing here excelled, but the image merited a “B”.

As for the film’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, it worked quite well. The wide variety of gags and supernatural elements allowed the soundscape to use the various channels in an active and involving manner much of the time. These didn’t create a truly dominant array of material that one might find from an action flick, but I still thought the effects showed good localization and integration, as they meshed together in a satisfying manner.

Audio quality was usually solid. The film showed some dodgy looping – mainly during the opening bits with Charlie Sheen and Linday Lohan – but the lines usually came across with good clarity and accuracy. Music was peppy and full, while effects appeared concise and distinctive. Low-end response appeared strong as well. This was a better than expected soundtrack.

In terms of extras, we get eight Deleted and Extended Scenes. These fill a total of nine minutes, 51 seconds as we find more of the sort of humor that makes up the feature film. A couple additional celebrity cameos appear, but we don’t get anything that expands characters/narrative in a notable way; the scenes just throw out more gags.

The disc opens with ads for Scream 4, Dark Skies, and Mac & Devin Go to High School. No trailer for Scary Movie V appears here.

A second disc provides a DVD copy of Scary Movie V. It includes the same deleted/extended scenes as the Blu-ray.

After four generally bad films, I figured Scary Movie V would be more of the same. Unfortunately, it couldn’t even live up to the low standards of its predecessors, as it delivers a completely repugnant and unfunny experience. The Blu-ray provides pretty good picture and audio but skimps on bonus materials. I suspect even fans of the Scary Movie series won’t find much to like in this brainless waste of time.

Viewer Film Ratings: 2.3333 Stars Number of Votes: 3
15:
04:
0 3:
02:
21:
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