| Scary Movie 3 | |
|---|---|
 Great trilogies come in threes. | |
| Directed by | David Zucker |
| Produced by | Robert K. Weiss, David Zucker |
| Written by | Craig Mazin, Pat Proft |
| Starring | Anna Faris, Simon Rex, Regina Hall, Leslie Nielsen, Charlie Sheen, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, Camryn Manheim, George Carlin, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Drew Mikuska, Jianna Ballard, Denise Richards |
| Music by | James Venable, Frank Fitzpatrick, Jorge Corante |
| Distributed by | Dimension Films |
| Release date(s) | October 24, 2003 |
| Running time | 84 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $48 million |
| Gross revenue | $220,673,217 |
| Preceded by | Scary Movie 2 |
| Followed by | Scary Movie 4 |
Scary Movie 3 is a 2003 American science fiction horror comedy film, which parodies the horror, sci-fi, and mystery genres, directed by David Zucker. It is the third film of the Scary Movie franchise, as well as the first to have no involvement from the Wayans family. The film's plot significantly parodies the films The Ring, Signs, and 8 Mile.
Plot
The movie's plot is introduced by two voluptuous girls, Katie (Jenny McCarthy) and Becca (Pamela Anderson), meeting a gruesome supernatural demise seven days after having watched a cursed videotape and receiving a phone call with a ghostly message predicting the watchers' death. In a farm outside Washington, D.C., widowed farmer and former reverend Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen) and his clumsy and easily discouraged brother George (Simon Rex) discover a crop circle making up a sign pointing to the farm that reads in plain English: "ATTACK HERE".
In Washington D.C., Cindy Campbell, now a blonde anchorwoman, goes to pick up her paranormally endowed nephew Cody (Drew Mikuska), who becomes a subject of repeated accidental abuse in the course of the film, at school, where her friend Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) works as a teacher. George Logan arrives to fetch his niece Sue. George and Cindy take an immediate liking to each other, and he invites Cindy and Brenda to a rap-off with his rapper friends Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart). George is actually quite successful, but due to some unintentional racist blunders he is eventually thrown out.
Following the rap-off, Brenda asks Cindy to keep her company, as she has watched the cursed videotape herself. After playing several jokes on Cindy, (fake seizure, burning hand, etc.), she goes to watch TV and is attacked and killed by the undead girl Tabitha (Marny Eng), but not before challenging Tabitha to an impromptu brawling match. After Brenda's funeral reception, during which George and Mahalik wreak havoc on Brenda's corpse in an ill attempt to bring her back to life (when George says he doesn't like have the open coffin just sitting out, Cindy said "it [was] a wake", which George mistook for awake.), Cindy decides to watch the tape for herself and also receives the fateful message; she calls George, CJ, and Mahalik for help. CJ comments his Aunt ShaNeequa, an oracle, might be able to help. Aunt ShaNeequa (Queen Latifah) and her husband Orpheus (Eddie Griffin) agree to help and Cindy gives them a copy of the killer tape. After watching a segment of it, Aunt ShaNeequa discovers a backmasked picture of a lighthouse, and she tells Cindy to find it. But when Cindy returns home, she finds to her horror that Cody has also watched the tape, condemning him to certain death as well.
At work, Cindy looks through various pictures of lighthouses and finds the one depicted in the tape, but she leaves the tape at the studio where her boss finds it. Inside the lighthouse, she meets The Architect (George Carlin) who tells her the real story of Tabitha and how the killer tape got out in the world: Tabitha was his evil adopted daughter, whom his wife had drowned in their family farm's well, but she managed to imprint her curse upon the tape; he had once rented the movie Pootie Tang but accidentally returned the killer tape to Blockbuster. Cindy tries to warn the population, but only a few people take her warnings seriously: George, Tom (who had just had an uncanny encounter with an alien creature) and President Baxter Harris (Leslie Nielsen), comes to the Logan farm to investigate the crop circles personally.
Upon arriving home again, Cindy discovers that her news show has broadcasted the killer tape for hours, dooming a wide selection of people to death, and in addition, Cody has gone missing. Cindy tracks him back the Logan farm, where he has taken refuge with George. Tom has everybody in the house go into the basement for safety, while he, George and Mahalike go outside to fight off the extraterrestrials. The aliens (voiced by Tom Kenny) arrive, but soon it turns out that despite the rough first touch these visitors are friendly. In fact, they have come to Earth to stop Tabitha as well, since they had accidentally watched the tape on a broadcast they had intercepted.
In the basement, Cindy realizes that a certain scene from the killer tape matches the farm's cellar, and underneath the floor she finds the well where Tabitha was drowned. Suddenly Tabitha appears behind her. A short fight follows, during which Tabitha takes Cody hostage. Cindy and George attempt to appeal to her, offering her a place in their family. At first, Tabitha appears to have accepted, but then refuses and prepares to attack again; however, she is unwittingly defeated by the President entering the cellar, who pushes her back into the well. The aliens leave in peace, and the film ends with Cindy and George getting married, but Cody was not with them. Cody chases Cindy and George, about to be hit by the car. The car stop at the very lat minute, to which Cody survived, only to be hit by another car in the other road.
Alternate Ending
The Alternate ending starts with at the Logan farm when Cindy looks for Cody, only to encounter a strange man who claims that she is mentally unstable. As Cindy argues with him, she discovers that only she can see cody and flashes back to an earlier scenes revealed to be hallucinations. As Cindy realises that she let her imagination terrify the world and apologies to everyone, the aliens land from behind. The Aliens have them outmachted untill George turns into the Hulk and begins to beat them all. Cindy sees someone moving inside and sneaks off. She encounters Tabitha inside, but is transported into a Matrix Parody room, where the Oracle and Orpheus teach her how to fight because she is "the One". Cindy then battles an army of Tabitha's and manages to defeat them all. She then returns to the farm and celebrates with the others. The group then drives off, only to be hit with the same car from the real ending, and Micheal Jackson can be seen driving the car.
Cast
- Kevin Hartas CJ
- George Carlin as the Architect
- Drew Mikuska as Cody
- D.L. Hughley as John Wilson
- Ja Ruleas Agent Thompson
- Simon Cowell as Himself
- Marny Engas Tabitha
- Fat Joe as Himself
- Edward Moss as MJ (Michael Jackson)
- Tom Kenny as Aliens (Voice, uncredited)
Parodies
- Pamela Anderson's sex tape - When Becca asks Katie whether she heard about the video (meaning the one from the Ring), Kate replies with "The one where they do it on the boat, then in the car, then in the bathtub? and he's like, "Hey, baby, I love you?", referring to Pamela's infamous sex tape and even doing an impression of Tommy Lee.
- The Hot Chick - The Scene where Becca calls Kate a hoe and they start hitting each other with chairs, pillows and a laptop, similar to the pillow fight in The Hot Chick.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: - Becca's mom sounds like Gollum and even utters the phrase, "My precious."
- Airplane! - Leslie Nielsen's line "I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you" is repeated multiple times later in the film. Even after he "accidentley" knocks Tabitha down the well with the door.
- Air Force One - The President refers to a picture of Harrison Ford in the White House as 'President Ford.'
- The Ring - Main Parody
- Final Destination - Tertiary Parody Cody's parodies Alex Browning's character, foreseeing a characters demise by bus and himself is almost killed by a fan shrapnel head split parodying Billy's death. George also asleep is unable to prevent Cody's watching of the tape. In the end Cody is struck on a side collision parodying Terry's death. Brenda's corpse like Tod's is mistaken to be alive and is manipulated.
- Final Destination 2 - Quarternary Parody Cindy parodies Kimberley Corman. Cody foresees a latino pregnant funeral goer will bear a boy parodying Isabella Hudson and her fated birth. Cody's first car collision on he highway next to a pile-up of Final Destination 2 victim's vehicles. Two other funeral goers parody Eugene Dix and Rory Peterson.
- The Others - Michael Jackson scene
- 8 Mile - The rap battle, George in the club/bathroom, CJ throwing paint at people from the car
- Malibu's Most Wanted - The rap scene and when George gets thrown out of the club
- Signs - Secondary Parody
- The Matrix - Brenda vs. Tabitha, The Oracle and Orpheus
- The Matrix Reloaded - The scene with the Architect. Scenes from the alternate ending.
- Jeopardy! - Brief Scene where the scores show up on the screens inside the lighthouse.
- Pootie Tang - A copy was rented by the Architect character and the cursed tape was sent back instead.
- American Idol - During the rap-off scene, Simon Cowell, the former sarcastic British judge of American Idol, is asked to comment on a rap battle he had just viewed, and he gives it a horrible review (calling the performances "absolutely dreadful" and saying that the club was "totally pathetic"), leading the pistol-wielding audience to riddle him with bullets. Upon watching the movie, Simon Cowell admitted that his own acting was "absolutely dreadful".
- Ben-Hur - One of the Dogs in the scene of the strange dogs is acting like a horse for a chariot for another dog like in Charlton Heston's 1959 film Ben-Hur.
- How High - The dogs that were acting strange were doing drugs like in Method Man's 2001 film How High.
- Lethal Weapon 2 - Brief scene when CJ was trying to hug George and he gets pushed out of the way by Mahalik and George is like in Richard Donner's sequel to Lethal Weapon. George is supposed to be Mel Gibson, Anthony Anderson's character is supposed to be Danny Glover, and CJ is supposed to be Joe Pesci.
- Hulk - scene from the alternate ending when George morphs into the Hulk.
- Star Trek - The suits that the ailens wear.
- BASEketball - When the President say "You're excited? You should feel my nipples!", during the White house scene. David Zucker directed both BASEketball and Scary Movie 3.
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) - Tabitha swings the chainsaw upon her head (until she saws off the piece of ceiling) like Leatherface in the 2003 box office smash remake, he also upon doing this tumbles down upon hitting something whilst swinging.
Trivia
Anthony Anderson's character turned out so popular in test screenings, that additional scenes for him were quickly written and shot while the film was already in post-production. Jenny McCarthy appears in "Scary Movie 3" after turning down a role in the original "Scary Movie" to appear in "Scream 3". At one point Kevin Smith was attached to write the script. Anna Faris (Cindy) and Regina Hall (Brenda) are the only people to appear in all four Scary Movie films. The Car Driven by the main character is a Brilliant Blue Toyota Prius Hybrid. It is the first mass produced gas/electric hybrid to appear in a major motion picture. In the trailer, a scene is shown with the oracle threatening her husband with a frying pan. This was not shown in the theater version. When Cindy is searching about Morton Lighthouse, there are several pop-ups that appear on the screen, but one is not an ad. It says: "This may sound overly simplified... but high interest rates eventually cause low interest rates... and conversely... low interest rates eventually lead to high interest rates." with a yellow background. A lengthy alternative ending was shot but later scrapped. That ending included spoofs of "A Beautiful Mind", "Hulk", and especially "The Matrix Reloaded". Some additional scenes extensively including spoofs of "The Matrix Reloaded" were removed from the final film. They included a scene where Cindy fights a large number of Tabithas similar to the Burly Brawl scene in The Matrix Reloaded, and Orpheus "prophesizing". The removal of those scenes is also the reason of Queen Latifah never appearing in the final movie dressed as Neo from The Matrix Reloaded, although she appears dressed up that way in the movie's promotions and poster. Cameo (Tom Kenny): uncredited as the voice of the aliens. The "And twins!" sequence is a parody of a 2003 ad campaign by Coors Light beer. Diane Klimaszewski and Elaine Klimaszewski reprise their roles as the Coors Light Twins from the ads. Charlie Sheen's first parody movie since "Hot Shots! Part Deux". Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were briefly in talks to write and direct the movie after the Wayans Brothers left the franchise. However, Friedberg and Seltzer wanted to make the movie chiefly a parody of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, whose working title was reported as "Scary Movie 3: Episode I: Lord of the Brooms". Ultimately, Harvey Weinstein preferred to keep the series parodying horror films, and so Friedberg and Seltzer's script went unused. Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg did an uncredited rewrite.
