I want to be a filmmaker. After going to school and writing, editing and learning how lights and a camera work, I have made the choice to follow that passion for the rest of my life. Perhaps that’s why seeing these parody films today is so enraging. Knowing that there are people out there getting to live their dream by making shit like A HAUNTED HOUSE and THE STARVING GAMES truly pains me. One of my friends proposed the theory that maybe they’re intentionally making bad films to see how long the public will accept it. With each passing movie, I’m more inclined to believe her. Much like The Bride in KILL BILL, I’ve crafted a list of the names of the responsible filmmakers who need to be taken down, listed from least to most offensive.
#3: Marlon Wayans/Rick Alvarez/Michael Tiddes
This trio of thickheaded filmmakers have brought us A HAUNTED HOUSE and will be releasing A HAUNTED HOUSE 2 in March 2014. While the first was pretty awful and Wayans also made us suffer through DANCE FLICK, his films are few and far between and, at the very least, a laugh or two (at most) will be provided.
#2: Craig Moss
Craig is the dude that wrote and directed THE 41 YEAR OLD VIRGIN WHO KNOCKED UP SARAH MARSHALL AND FELT SUPERBAD ABOUT IT and 30 NIGHTS OF PARANORMAL ACTIVITY WITH THE DEVIL INSIDE THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. While, yes, these movies are embarrassingly dreadful, they’ve typically remained unseen and unknown thanks to being released straight to DVD.
#1: Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
These guys you probably know. DATE MOVIE, EPIC MOVIE, DISASTER MOVIE and VAMPIRES SUCK are all their faults. With their last few attempts of filmmaking being financial letdowns, they’ve been forced to go the limited theater and straight-to-DVD route. According to the inter-webs, their latest movie BEST NIGHT EVER (which was brought to light to by our own Eric Walkulski RIGHT HERE), appears to be making another small theater run, but how in the hell are these two still generating enough profit to continue making movies? Not only that, but they’re in production for a movie called SUPERFAST, which will parody, you guessed it, the FAST & FURIOUS franchise.
Instead of making a clever statement about a popular movie or genre, these filmmakers simply reference movies for laughs. To them, the more films that are mentioned, the funnier and more successful the humor is. Ironically enough, the films they mock are actually better than the parody, itself. I’d give these guys a little credit if the films they made fun of related to each other. For example, SCARY MOVIE 2 made fun of ghost and haunted house movies and SUPERHERO MOVIE made fun of superhero films. However, in MEET THE SPARTANS, they tackle 300, CASINO ROYALE, STOMP THE YARD and TRANSFORMERS (and so many more). With all these unrelated references, there’s no time to allow us to care about the characters or to have them exist in their own, self-contained story. That wouldn’t be a problem if at the very least these movies were funny, but they’re not. Even when there’s a chuckle, they just keep going on with the joke, like a little kid who has realized they made you laugh and keep going and going until you want to dropkick them into a thorn bush.
I’m not asking for another AIRPLANE! or YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but do these movies really have to be so exhaustively stupid? The parody subgenera never was high art, but look at HOT FUZZ or BLACK DYNAMITE. They parody action films and blaxploitation films, respectively, and while they’re silly and not for everyone, there’s still a cohesive story and characters with motivation and goals. My favorite parody, WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY is not only hilarious, but it pokes fun of multiple movies (WALK THE LINE, RAY), features a myriad of characters who actually progress the plot and is pretty much a parody of musical biopics in general, so in a sense, it’s damn smart comedy. Even with films like SCARY MOVIE 3, there were attempts to try and make you laugh without cramming in as many movie references as possible. You could tell which films and celebrities were being made fun of and instead of having movie references drive the story, the plot and characters were the references, letting the movie breathe and go from Point A to Point B while telling a few jokes along the way.
So, C’mon, Hollywood! Stop being so damn lazy when it comes to parodying movies. I know they say comedy is hard, but it’s come to the point where they’re not even trying. Making a parody of contemporary cinema shouldn’t be hard at all, given the amount of crap we get on a regular basis. Thankfully, the public has seen through this nonsense and the craze of the “Movie” movies has finally dissipated. Hopefully, the funding for these projects will fade away and tolerating a release of any of these tired parodies will eventually stop once and for all.