Scary Movie 3

Scary Movie 3

Theatrical release poster
Directed by David Zucker
Produced by
  • Robert K. Weiss
  • David Zucker
Written by
Based on Characters
by Shawn Wayans
Marlon Wayans
Buddy Johnson
Phil Beauman
Jason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer
Starring
Music by James L. Venable
Cinematography Mark Irwin
Edited by Jon Poll
Production
companies
Distributed by Miramax Films
Release dates
  • October 20, 2003 (2003-10-20) (Los Angeles premiere)
  • October 24, 2003 (2003-10-24)
Running time
 84 minutes[1]
Country
  • United States
  • Canada
Language English
Budget $48 million[2]
Box office $220.7 million

Scary Movie 3 is a 2003 American science fiction comedy horror film, which parodies the horror, sci-fi, and mystery genres, as well as the third film of the Scary Movie franchise, and the first to be directed by David Zucker.

The film stars Anna Faris and Regina Hall reprising their roles as Cindy Campbell and Brenda Meeks, respectively. New cast members include Charlie Sheen, Simon Rex, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, and Leslie Nielsen. It is the first film in the series to feature no involvement from the Wayans family. The characters of Shorty Meeks and Ray Wilkins, previously played by Shawn and Marlon Wayans, do not appear, nor are they referenced.

The film's plot significantly parodies the films The Ring, Signs, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and 8 Mile. It opened to mixed reviews from critics, who praised its consistent humor and satire, but criticized many other aspects such as casting, plot, and pacing. The film was a box office success, grossing $220.7 million worldwide. It is the last film in the series to be released by The Walt Disney Company's subsidiary Miramax Films, under the brand Dimension Films. After Dimension Films brand left Disney, Scary Movie 4 became the first film to be released by The Weinstein Company. It was named the 2004 Teen Choice Awards in the category of Choice Movie: Your Parents Didn't Want You to See.[3]

Plot

Katie (Jenny McCarthy) and Becca (Pamela Anderson) are talking about a tape, which Katie believes is a sex tape, but Becca refers to a cursed tape (The Ring). After several odd occurrences, they both die. Meanwhile, in a farm outside Washington, D.C., widowed farmer Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen) and his clumsy brother George (Simon Rex) discover a crop circle, saying "Attack Here!" (Signs).

Meanwhile, (taking place nearly ten years after the second film) Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), now a blonde news reporter, announces the crop circles on the news. She then goes to pick up her paranormally endowed nephew Cody (Drew Mikuska) from school, where her best friend Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) is his teacher. George Logan arrives to pick up his niece Sue, who is in the same class. Cindy falls in love with George, who invites her and Brenda to a rap-battle that evening with his rapper friends Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart) (8 Mile). George competes and proves to be actually quite talented, but due to unintentional racist blunders, he's thrown out.

Later, Brenda asks Cindy to keep her company, since she watched the cursed videotape. After playing several pranks on Cindy (fake seizures, burning hand, etc.), she gets the rest of the popcorn in the lounge, when the TV turns on. Brenda fails to turn it off. Tabitha (Marny Eng) climbs out of the well and the TV, Brenda gets into a fight with Tabitha. Tabitha ends up killing Brenda, since Cindy is ignoring the ruckus. George receives a phone call about the death, and Tom meets with Sayaman, who apologizes for the accident involving himself and Tom's wife Annie (Denise Richards).

During Brenda's wake, George and Mahalik, due to a misunderstanding, wreak havoc on Brenda's corpse in an unsuccessful attempt to revive her, only to blow up her body and end up getting kicked out of the house. Later, Cindy decides to watch the tape, finding it odd. She then gets a phone call, saying she'll die in a week. She calls George, CJ and Mahalik for help. CJ offers that his Aunt Shaneequa might be able to help. Aunt Shaneequa (Queen Latifah), the Matrix Oracle, and her husband Orpheus (Eddie Griffin) agree to watch the tape. Shaneequa discovers the hidden image of a lighthouse, and gets into a fight with Tabitha's mother. Shaneequa tells Cindy to find the lighthouse to break the curse. When Cindy returns home, she finds Cody watched the tape.

Back at work, Cindy searches through pictures of lighthouses before finding the one from the tape. Desperate to save Cody, Cindy tries to warn everyone by entering a message into the news anchor's teleprompter, but she is interrupted by her boss and a janitor who insults the manager on the teleprompter (which the anchorman blindly recites). The Logans hear the message and take it seriously since they encountered an alien disguised as Michael Jackson (Edward Moss), and President Baxter Harris (Leslie Nielsen), who personally visits the farm to investigate the crop circles. Cindy ventures to the lighthouse, where she encounters The Architect (George Carlin). The loquacious (and lecherous) old man explains Tabitha was his evil adopted daughter, whom his wife drowned in the farm's well, but not before she imprinted her evil onto the tape. Unfortunately, he mistook the evil tape for a copy of Pootie Tang and returned it to Blockbuster instead, unleashing the curse. When Cindy asks about how this relates to the Aliens, the Architect speculates that Tabitha is summoning them to aid her in destroying the human race.

Returning home, Cindy discovers her station has been broadcasting the evil tape for hours, and there have been various sightings of aliens around the world. Worse, Cody is missing. Cindy manages to track him back to the Logan farm, where he has taken refuge with George. Tom orders everybody into the basement for safety, as he, George and Mahalik go outside to fight off the extraterrestrials. The aliens (voiced by Tom Kenny) arrive but reveal they are friendly and have come to stop Tabitha, since they accidentally watched the tape on a broadcast they had intercepted, thinking it was Pootie Tang.

In the basement, Cindy realizes the farm's cellar is what is seen on the tape and she finds the well where Tabitha was drowned under the cellar floor. Suddenly, Tabitha appears behind her. A short fight ensues, during which Tabitha takes Cody hostage. Cindy and George appeal to her, offering her a place in their family. Tabitha appears to accept the offer, but then changes back to her monstrous form and advances to Cindy and the others, only to be accidentally knocked back into the well by President Harris. The aliens leave in peace, and Cindy and George get married. Leaving for their honeymoon, they realize they forget to take Cody with them. At first, Cody is about to get hit by Cindy's car in an intersection, but she put the brakes this time to prevent it from happening, much to Cody's relief. Unfortunately, causing Cody to be hit by another car passing through the intersection.

Cast

Rapper cameos

As well as in "The Rap Battle", several actual rappers assist in the confrontation with the aliens and a subsequent shootout amongst themselves.

Posters

There were four posters. The first poster spoofed Signs where the signs are shaved on the back of someones hair with a small house on top on the hair and on the top left of the hair is a comb. The second poster spoofed The Ring where there are two rings with a small circle inside each ring and at the bottom of the poster is an upside down triangle. The header reads "You'd die to see these rings". The third poster spoofed Catch Me If You Can where a woman in her bikini, who is screaming is running away from a blue alien. The header reads "catch her if you can". The fourth and final poster is the original poster as in the first two Scary Movie films where sitting in the back are Orpheus, Oracle and President Baxter Harris and sitting in the front row are Simon Rex, Mahalik, Cindy Campbell and Tom Logan with Annie Logan sitting on his right knee. MJ alien is sitting in the far back and the background spoofing the signs poster. The header reads "Great trilogies come in threes".

Alternate scenes

The DVD edition includes a director's audio commentary, several deleted scenes and alternative endings (with optional commentary). A "3.5" special DVD was also released, and contained several more deleted scenes than the original DVD, with an unrated version of the film.

In the alternate ending, Cindy is told Cody does not exist. After hitting a few people in the face with a shovel, Cindy asks everybody who is not real to stand over at a different spot. Cody goes over there, but is followed by Santa Claus. The aliens then begin to invade but George stops them by transforming into The Hulk. President Harris tries to hulk out, but ends up soiling his pants. Cindy enters the Logan House, where she is attacked by Tabitha. She is teleported away to Aunt Shaneequa, who teaches her how to defeat Tabitha. Cindy must then confront hundreds of Tabithas. She wins the battle by performing moves from The Matrix and teleports back to the Logan House. The cast then gets into a car with the President, but are horrified to learn that the driver happens to be M. Night Shyamalan.

One of the scenes that appeared on the Extended DVD named Scary Movie 3.5 was part of the unrated feature. After Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy shut off the TV, the two compliment each other on their good looks. Anderson then asks if McCarthy wants her "shaved pussy", but this turns out to be a furless kitten.

In an extended scene, the person who runs Cody down at the end is shown to be Michael Jackson.

Parodies

The film parodies several films, including The Ring, Signs, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, 8 Mile,[4] Minority Report, BASEketball, The Lord of the Rings, The Sixth Sense, The Others, Pootie Tang, Airplane! and Air Force One.[5][6]

Music

The score for the film was composed by James L. Venable. The original soundtrack was released on October 24, 2003, and features hip hop artists such as Buku Wise, Delinquent Habits, Dame Lee, Kebyar, and others.[7] Frank Fitzpatrick served as music supervisor for the film and soundtrack. Fitzpatrick produced and co-wrote the majority of original songs used for the feature.[8]

Reception

The film opened at the number one spot with $48,113,770, already recovering its budget and making it the highest debuting Scary Movie to date. It was also the highest weekend debut for a Fall and October release until it was broken by another threequel, Jackass 3D. In its second week takings declined to $20,017,468 but it still claimed the top spot for a second week running. At the end of its box office run, Scary Movie 3 grossed $110,003,217 in the US and $110,670,000 internationally, making $220,673,217 in total. It was an enormous box office success, earning more than the previous installment but $58 million less than the first.

Reviews were mixed but the consensus was that it was a marked improvement on the previous installment. The film received a 36% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 49 out of 100 on Metacritic.[9][10] This is the first film in the series to be rated PG-13. The first two films were R-rated.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Scary Movie 3 (15)". British Board of Film Classification. November 14, 2003. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Scary Movie 3 (2003)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2011-05-07.
  3. ↑ "Teen Choice Awards (2004)". Retrieved 2016-10-11.
  4. ↑ Holden, Stephen (2003-10-24). "FILM REVIEW - Horrors! Mysticism May Never Be The Same". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
  5. ↑ "Every Movie Spoofed in the Scary Movie Franchise". Vulture. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
  6. ↑ Emerson, Jim (2003-10-24). "Scary Movie 3 Movie Review & Film Summary (2003)". Roger Ebert. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
  7. ↑ "Various Artists, James L. Venable: Scary Movie 3: Music". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2015-05-11.
  8. ↑ "Frank Fitzpatrick". IMDb. Retrieved 2016-10-11.
  9. ↑ "Scary Movie 3 at Rotten Tomatoes". Uk.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
  10. ↑ "Scary Movie 3 at Metacritic". Metacritic.com. Retrieved 2012-01-16.

External links

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