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Scary Movie (film series)

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Scary Movie series
File:Scary Movie Trilogy.jpg
DVD Box cover for the first three films
Directed byFilms: 1, 2
Keenen Ivory Wayans
Films: 3, 4
David Zucker
Written byJason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer
Shawn Wayans
Marlon Wayans
Craig Wayans
Pat Proft
Craig Mazin
Jim Abrahams
Produced byFilms: 1, 2
Marlon Wayans
Shawn Wayans
Films: 3, 4
Robert K. Weiss
StarringAnna Faris
Regina Hall
Marlon Wayans
Shawn Wayans
Leslie Nielsen
Charlie Sheen
Simon Rex
Anthony Anderson
Kevin Hart
Distributed byUnited States:
Dimension Films
Miramax Films (from Scary Movie to Scary Movie 3)
The Weinstein Company (Scary Movie 4 and on.)
International:
Miramax Films
Buena Vista Distribution
Release date
2000 – present
Running time
338 minutes (as of 2007)
Country United States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$817 million (as of 2007)

The Scary Movie series is a series of comedy films which mainly specialize in spoofing current, popular horror films. The two main recurring actors of the series are Anna Faris and Regina Hall, as Cindy Campbell and Brenda Meeks, respectively. They are joined by new or recurring actors and characters.

They were distributed by Dimension Films through two different studios: Miramax Films, as it was originally the studio's genre film label during executive producers Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein's run and produced the first three films, and The Weinstein Company, the brothers' newly formed studio, which currently produces the rest of the series' release after departing from Miramax and taking the Dimension Films label with them. Miramax/Disney retains international distribution rights.

Plots

Scary Movie

Further information: Scary Movie

Scary Movie is the first film in the series. The film is the only in the series to feature exposed male genitalia. Scary Movie was the highest grossing film of the series, grossing around $278,019,771 worldwide. The movie is based on other scary movies made before but some of the details are made into jokes.[1].

After a group of teenagers (consting of Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), Bobby Prinze (Jon Abrahams), Buffy Gilmore (Shannon Elizabeth), Greg Phillipe (Lochlyn Munro), Ray Wilkins (Shawn Wayans) and Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall)) accidentally hit a man with their car they decide to throw him in the lake and never talk about it again (in a spoof of I Know What You Did Last Summer). A few years later a man (or woman) with a Scream mask kills them one by one. They decide to figure out who the killer is, but they eventually all die at the end.

Scary Movie 2

Further information: Scary Movie 2

Scary Movie 2 (July 6, 2001) is the second in franchise. In the U.S., the film grossed $71,308,997. Worldwide, it grossed $141,220,678. Although being a hit, out of the four Scary Movie films, this is the least successful to date[2]. Not only this is the second and final Scary Movie film to receive an R-rating, this film also marks the end of the Wayans siblings involvement with the series as they moved on to pursue other projects, among them, their 2004 comedy White Chicks.

The film starts with a parody of The Exorcist, a little girl named Megan Voorhees (sharing the same last name as the notorious serial killer Jason Voorhees) is possessed by the devil, and two priests, Father McFeely and Father Harris (James Woods and Andy Richter respectively) have to force the devil out. But after Megan insults McFeely's mother he shoots her in the head.

The characters who all had died in the first film mysteriously return in this film and they are joined with new characters: Buddy (Christopher Masterson), Theo (Kathleen Robertson) and Alex (Tori Spelling).

The story begins when a college professor, Professor Oldman (Tim Curry) and his wheel-chaired assistant Dwight (David Cross) plan to study ghosts from a haunted mansion, with the clueless teens as bait.

When at the house, strange things happen, Ray gets attacked by a clown, Shorty gets attacked by a living weed plant and Cindy gets in a fight with a possessed cat. When they find out about the professors plan they try to escape the house, finding out that there is a ghost who still lives in the house. They have to defeat the ghost before they are able to escape.

Scary Movie 3

Further information: Scary Movie 3

Scary Movie 3 (October 24, 2003) is the third film in the series. With $220,673,217 worldwide[3], it is second most successful/popular film in the series. The plot of the film is a spoof combination of The Ring and Signs with other film/celebrity spoofs thrown in. Michael Jackson planned to sue the filmmakers for parodying him in such a way that made him seem like a child molester[4]. This was the first Scary Movie film to receive a PG-13 rating in the United States[3] (as well as the first to have no involvement from the Wayans), as the first two were R-rated[5][6]. This is because from this movie forward, the films are more toned down in content.

In a spoof to Signs the film revolves around some strange Crop circles found near an old farm. And in a spoof to The Ring a strange videotape is going around, and when you've watched this tape the phone rings and a "creepy" voice says: "You're going to die in seven days". Everything keeps coming closer when Cindy has just fallen in love with a rapper named George, and she hears she is going to die in seven days. Meanwhile the farmers who had found the strange cropcircles in their cornfield discover that the aliens that are coming to earth come to destroy the killer who kills the people who have watched the tape, because they have looked at the tape themselves.

Scary Movie 4

Further information: Scary Movie 4

Scary Movie 4 (April 14, 2006) is the 4th in the series. The film opened with $40 Million at the weekend box office, making it the third best opening in the series. With a $178,049,620 at the worldwide box office, Scary Movie 4 ranks as the third highest grossing Scary Movie.

This film’s main plot is a mix of The Grudge and Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds with major scenes spoofing Saw and The Village. Michael Jackson is again parodied, even more obviously than in Scary Movie 3, as a child molester.

Scary Movie 5

is slated to be releases in 2008[7]

Running gags

  • The Scary Movie series is most known for the fact that the characters in the series are much less bright or have more comedic lines than the original characters they are spoofing. In a commentary for Scary Movie 4, the writers agreed that it's "like the movie, only every character is stupid".
  • So far, Cindy falls in love with a different man in every movie. In Scary Movie she is dating, her high school boyfriend Bobby Prinze who gets stabbed toward the end of the film and dies. In Scary Movie 2 Cindy is dating her college friend Buddy, who disappears at the end of the film, without any explanation. In Scary Movie 3 she dates a rapper named George Logan, who she then marries by the end of the film. In Scary Movie 4 it is explained that Cindy's former husband George, died by breaking his neck during her boxing match so during the fourth film she meets and falls in love with Tom Ryan.
  • In each movie, there are at least one or two people who get run over by a car or a bus. This was an important gag in Scary Movie, and appears twice in Scary Movie 2.
  • Michael Jackson is referred to in Scary Movie 3 and 4. Each one has him trying to have sex with a child, but his plans are foiled by the child's parent (Tom Logan encounters him in his child's bedroom and dangles him out of the window in Scary Movie 3 and Tom Ryan tells a bunch of children to run away from him during an alien attack in Scary Movie 4). He seems to die in Scary Movie 3, but appears in Scary Movie 4 unharmed (although in the unrated version, he is vaporized by the alien's heat ray). However, he would always lose his nose whenever he died or fell.
  • In Scary Movie 3 and 4, there is a parent/guardian of a child who is very incompetent of taking care of him/her, and the child is consciously left in very painful and/or humiliating points of life. It may be noted that Cindy took care of an elderly woman in 'Scary Movie 4, and in just the beginning, she hit her head on a table, got a bald spot due to a fan incident, was soaked in urine, knocked out by a powerful fire hose, and clipped to a clothes line when powerful weather was taking place.
  • Leslie Nielsen appears in Scary Movie 3 and 4, playing the part of President Harris. Both have Harris causing some kind of disaster that causes a riot. These include beating up people thinking they're aliens (Scary Movie 3), and causing children to go insane and destroy everything in their path by ruining their hopes and telling them their families could have been killed, then causing the entire UN to go insane with embarrassment by accidentally activating a modified alien death ray and causing their clothes to vanish, including his (Scary Movie 4). A lot of President Harris' things are taken from characters that Leslie Nielsen has played in the past. Such as the quote "Hey folks, I just wanted to wish you both good luck...we're all counting on you" which was taken from Airplane![8] and a look that Harris had on his face in Scary Movie 4 was taken from Nielsen's character from The Naked Gun Series, Frank Drebin.
  • Mahalik and CJ often get into arguments about things that make no difference in arguing about (like how people turn up missing, or if someone can wake up dead, and the difference between mice and rats). Each end with Mahalik beating CJ, who states that what Mahalik stated made complete sense, yet in a way that didn't make sense. Then they do a handshake that always get CJ knocked over.
  • Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2 seem to break the fourth wall. In Scary Movie, Shorty says, "The rules of surviving a horror movie are," and in Scary Movie 2, Cindy bumps into Ray and asks," What are you doing here?" Ray says, "It's the sequel." "Oh, yeah," Cindy said. Also Cindy has appeared to notice the camera, in Scary Movie she screams when the phone rings the camera goes in for a close up and bangs into her head she stops screaming and pushes the camera away. In Scary Movie 4 she yet again notices the camera when she sees Tom's dead body, the camera attempts to move away to the side of her shocked face but before it can do so she moves in front of it again with the same look this may be for attention.
  • Over the course of the series several characters reappear, inexplicably, after having been killed in the previous movie. Brenda was stabbed to death by an entire theater audience in Scary Movie and was revived in Scary Movie 2 only to be killed once more in Scary Movie 3 and be revived once again in Scary Movie 4. In Scary Movie 4 Cindy attempts to get an explanation of her random resurrection from Brenda, however after telling Brenda "I thought you were dead" all Brenda can say is "oh, girl I thought you were dead too", leaving no explanation. Ray Wilkins, Brenda's boyfriend in the first two movies, is killed once in Scary Movie, only to be shown to have survived the attack up to the end of the movie and ends up getting killed again, only to be resurrected at random in Scary Movie 2. The character Shorty Meeks is shot to death in Scary Movie and then appears alive in Scary Movie 2.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Boxofficemojo.com". Scary Movie, worldwide gross. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ "Boxofficemojo.com". Scary Movie 2. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ a b "Boxofficemojo.com". Scary Movie 3 Worldwide Gross. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Starswelove.com". Angry Michael Jackson to Sue "Scary Movie 3". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ "Boxofficemojo.com". Scary Movie MPAA Rating. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ "Boxofficemojo.com". Scary Movie 2 MPAA Rating. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ http://www.moviehole.net/news/20060417_scary_movie_5_is_coming.html
  8. ^ "Scary Movie 3 at the The Internet Movie Database". Trivia. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  1. ^ Sophie Monk to star in 'Scary Movie 5'?
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