I saw this on my birthday 20 years ago and I actually laughed a lot. It’s not a great movie but the other spoofs of the 2000’s make it look like the Naked Gun or Airplane. The charm of Anna Faris helped.

This has an all star cast, continuing the tradition of making a mockery out of most of the serious movies that were around at the time.

You know, in my head this was the #2 funnier movie of the franchise, only losing for the SM4 but I barely laugh with this one. The cast is amazing and the fact that they added Leslie Nielsen is undoubtedly a score but a touch of the Wayans Brothers is clearly missed in here. The humor is kinda idiotic most of the time - and I'm not saying that the previous ones was THAT different - but you know in SM1 and SM2 you still could sense a slight of social criticism or feel the wit of the Wayans in form of a joke but in this one the jokes are pure hits and long sequences of "comedic-confusion", like when Brenda is pranking Cindy over and over. As a kid I used to think that sequence was a blast but now... Meh. It's so long and repetitive and out of character even for Brenda that it looked like it took an eternity to be over. Well, let's see what will happen in SM4... A.K.A my favorite movie of the whole franchise. Will it ruin my childhood memory? Hehehe don't know!

It’s natural for audiences not to watch a parody expecting coherence, dramatic depth, or complex characters. All we really expect is rhythm, surprise, and immediate impact. The trick is keeping everything floating in the air at the same time: references, timing, exaggeration, nonsense, and speed. When one joke fails, another needs to show up before silence has a chance to settle in. The problem with a lot of comedy sequels like this is that they confuse repetition with intensity, turning the volume up without finding new ways to make people laugh. “Scary Movie 3,” thankfully, understands that surviving inside a comedy franchise requires more than just stacking references on top of each other. Under David Zucker’s direction, the film moves away from the overly gross and desperate humor of the second movie and gets closer to the classic logic of absurd parody: comedy built on rhythm, physical staging, and dialogue moving fast enough to stop the audience from thinking too hard about how stupid everything actually is. That shift in direction is noticeable from the very first minutes. While “Scary Movie 2” felt like a random collection of sketches stitched together with no real narrative progression, “Scary Movie 3” at least tries to function like an actual movie. The storyline involving the cursed videotape inspired by “The Ring” and the alien invasion from “Signs” creates a more linear narrative backbone, allowing the jokes to develop within a continuous logic instead of just appearing completely disconnected from one another. And that matters. Even though the script is openly absurd, there’s a more organized sense of dramatic movement here, almost like the movie finally understands that good parody depends just as much on structure as it does on isolated gags. Craig Mazin and Pat Proft’s screenplay finds a much more effective balance between cinematic satire and pure nonsense, using the movies being parodied not just as empty references, but as raw material for genuinely funny situations. A huge part of why the movie works comes down to pacing. David Zucker directs the film like someone fully aware that comedy can’t stop moving for too long. The jokes arrive at such an aggressive speed that the movie practically turns failed gags into irrelevant details. If one joke doesn’t land, another one has already replaced it seconds later. That nonstop energy even compensates for some lazy moments or references that haven’t aged particularly well. The visual humor becomes strong again, especially through physical accidents, ridiculous framing, and unexpected interruptions that directly recall the style Zucker helped define decades earlier. There’s a very specific kind of pleasure in watching the movie embrace stupidity without trying too hard to seem clever, unlike the second film, which often felt painfully desperate in its attempt to shock people. This one feels much more comfortable simply being ridiculous. Of course, not everything works perfectly. The humor tones down some of the aggressiveness that defined the first two movies, and at certain moments you can clearly feel the film holding back its excesses in order to reach a broader audience. That creates an interesting contradiction: even though it’s better written and more structured, the movie also feels a little less anarchic. Some references show up without much inspiration behind them, especially when the screenplay tries to squeeze in parodies that barely connect to horror or science fiction, like the “8 Mile” segment, which mostly feels included because it was culturally huge at the time. Still, even those detours rarely damage the movie overall because the comedy flows so much better than it did in its predecessor. The cast also contributes a lot to that improvement. Anna Faris remains the heart of the franchise and maybe the funniest element across the first three movies. She has this incredibly specific understanding of physical comedy and absurd timing that turns even the dumbest lines into memorable moments. Faris never seems embarrassed by how ridiculous Cindy Campbell is. If anything, she fully embraces the cartoonish exaggeration of the character. Regina Hall is also fantastic once again as Brenda, finding the perfect balance between verbal chaos and self-aware caricature. Many of the movie’s funniest scenes depend entirely on how committed those two actresses are to the insanity around them. Leslie Nielsen fits perfectly into the franchise’s world as well, almost functioning like a direct bridge between the classic parody style of the 1980s and this newer generation of mainstream 2000s spoofs. Maybe the most interesting thing about “Scary Movie 3,” though, is its understanding that parody still needs some level of functional cinematic construction. The film isn’t just a lazy sequence of references thrown onto the screen hoping audiences recognize them automatically. There’s a stronger concern here with progression, continuity, and the chaining together of situations. Even when the narrative goes completely off the rails, it maintains an internal sense of direction that keeps the movie from collapsing structurally the way “Scary Movie 2” did. That makes the whole experience much more enjoyable because it doesn’t feel like you’re just watching an improvised sketch compilation. Overall, “Scary Movie 3” might not reach the impact of the original film, which had the freshness of revitalizing a still relatively new formula in the early 2000s, but it’s a very clear recovery after the immediate burnout of the second sequel. The jokes are better, the narrative is more organized, and the humor finds a much more effective balance between nonsense, satire, and physical absurdity. Not every reference has aged well, not every gag hits its target, and the movie occasionally feels limited by its attempt to soften the material for a wider rating. Even so, there’s a genuine energy running through the entire production, something the previous chapter completely lacked. “Scary Movie 3” understands that the secret to good parody isn’t just recognizing the movies being mocked, but turning that recognition into comedic rhythm. And surprisingly, it manages to do that far better than anyone would expect from the third movie in this franchise.

You can tell right away that a new team took the reins with “Scary Movie 3.” The humor, while still in poor taste, isn't entirely focused on bodily fluids anymore, and there's even something resembling a plot. On a very basic level, the film also has a few clever touches to its parody. At least this time I actually laughed a few times unironically, so in that sense it's definitely an improvement over its predecessors. Of course, the film is still not exactly high art, but in my opinion, it's certainly the best entry in the series.