Scary Movie 3 (2003)

If you’re a fan of both horror movies and comedies like I am, no doubt you’re already familiar with the Scary Movie franchise. If you’re familiar with the Scary Movie franchise, you may already be familiar with the turmoil surrounding the third movie. Basically, the Wayans brothers dropped out, the script got passed around and rewritten — and rewritten, and rewritten, and finally ended up with David Zucker (Airplane) at the helm.

This is probably the first time I’ve ever written this in a movie review, but at times I felt like Scary Movie 3 might have actually had too much of a plot. This time around, the horror-parody franchise primarily mixes 8 Mile, Signs, The Ring, and The Matrix. Straying from the Wayans’ formula of pinning lots of skits together, Zucker’s style shows through by trying to make an actual movie with visual jokes just kind of piled everywhere.

Anna Faris is back as Cindy. This time around Cindy is a reporter who watches the video tape from the Ring. She meets up with a farmer named George (Signs) who really wants to be a rapper (8 Mile). If you’ve seen The Ring and Signs, you can probably imagine most of the jokes. Tin foil hat? Covered. Creepy video tape? Covered at least two or three times. Crop cirlces? Check. News footage of aliens walking around in the background? Check.

As with all movie parodies, some jokes worked, but unfortunately in Scary Movie 3 a lot don’t. Some of the Ring and Signs’ jokes were pretty funny, but the 8 Mile stuff seemed WAY too long to me. The Matrix jokes seemed somewhat dated and particularly forced. The architect scene (with a cameo by George Carlin) was pretty good, but the “visiting the Oracle” joke would have been more timely in Scary Movie 1. That being said, I can say that I did laugh outloud at least three times that I can remember.

Scary Movie 3 is probably my least favorite of the trilogy. It feels patched together and heavily edited — a fact that shows itself in two obvious ways. One, at least two scenes I saw in the trailer are missing from the film, and two, the film emerged with a PG-13 rating.

Fans of the other two Scary Movie films will laugh a few times. Those who don’t will get another chance next year — Scary Movie 4 is already set to be released in 2004.

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