Publication Date: 06-03-2026

Scary Movie 3 (2003) review

Dir. David Zucker

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

As a seven-year-old who was simply elated to see something like Scary Movie 3 in theaters, I was simply glad it existed, and that my mother agreed to take me. Sure, I wondered why Shorty and Ray weren’t in the film, and there was significantly less smoke/smoking involved, but it still made me laugh and felt both irreverent and relevant enough to tickle my fancy.

Fast-forward 23 years later, on the precipice of 30, with a car payment and recurring back pain, and Scary Movie 3 makes me laugh. But that’s beside the point. On his promotional tour for Him in September 2024, Marlon Wayans hopped on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, and finally gave his side of the story as to why him and his family (including brothers Shawn and Keenen Ivory, along with nephew Craig) were sidelined for remaining sequels. Essentially, scumbag producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein tried to lowball them on their pitch for a third film. Instead, they took their other concept, which became White Chicks, to Sony, all while the Weinsteins contracted director David Zucker and screenwriters Craig Mazin (RocketMan) and Pat Proft (frequent collaborator of Zucker) to have them helm Scary Movie 3.

The changes were noticeable to anyone who held any fondness for the first two Scary Movie films. For one, Scary Movie 3 is PG-13, an attempt to broaden commercial appeal. Gone was an emphasis on marijuana and African-American-centric humor — you wouldn’t catch Zucker attempting a scene quite like the one in which Brenda disturbs theater patrons, as you saw in the original film. Not to mention the absence of then-series mainstays Shorty and Ray, and it’s a miracle Scary Movie 3 wasn’t dead-on-arrival when it came to comedic personality. Thankfully, this muted-yet-still-amiable sequel often gets into the nitty-gritty of what it’s parodying, and Simon Rex is good enough to make you wish he at least had a recurring bit in the previous films.

The opening scene sets the tone in aggressively PG-13 fashion. Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy are busty Catholic schools who both view the Ring videotape and succumb to their fate. From there, we are introduced to a crop of new characters, including a farmer named Tom (Charlie Sheen) and his rapper brother George (Rex), who encounter aliens ala M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs.

Meanwhile, Cindy Campbell (the now-blonde Anna Faris) is a local TV news anchor raising her orphaned nephew, Cody (Drew Mikuska). She wants to do deep-dive, investigative pieces into the aforementioned Ring videotape as well as reports of an alien invasion, but her boss won’t allow for anything that isn’t scandalous. Tis pity Brenda (Regina Hall) is offed very quickly in this sequel, but it does lead to a hilarious sequence at a wake, which is interrupted by George’s manager, Mahalik (Anthony Anderson), and his pal, CJ (Kevin Hart).

A bevy of cameos are stuffed into a film that is barely 80 minutes long. Queen Latifah, Eddie Griffin, and George Carlin are all involved in an extended gag that parodies The Matrix. Leslie Nielsen plays the President because of course he does; Ja Rule is one of his assistants. Jeremy Piven is Cindy’s co-anchor, who has a memorable bit involving a hijacked teleprompter.

Scary Movie 3 is one of the last feature-length spoof movies before Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer FUBAR-ed the genre with Date Movie in 2006, Epic Movie the following year, and a handful of other shamefully artless works of brand recognition. With that, parody movies not only became more about cameos and sporadic, disconnected references to pop culture items and less about trying to unify them with a coherent story. Maybe my hatred for Signs leads to me liking Scary Movie 3 more than most. Maybe it’s my persistent immaturity. Either way, it’s a relic for me in multiple respects; the last of a dormant breed.

My review of Scary Movie (2000)
My review of Scary Movie 2
My review of Scary Movie 4
My review of Scary Movie 5
My review of Scary Movie (2026)

Starring: Anna Faris, Simon Rex, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, Drew Mikuska, Leslie Nielsen, Ja Rule, Jeremy Piven, Queen Latifah, Eddie Griffin, George Carlin, Jenny McCarthy, and Pamela Anderson. Directed by: David Zucker.