Director: Michael Tiddes
Writers: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Rick Alvarez, Craig Wayans
Stars: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, Regina Hall
Synopsis: Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer, the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe.
It may seem silly to say it at face value, but it’s truly a high-wire balancing act to make a truly great comedy, let alone a spoof movie. Not only does there need to exist a clever inversion of whatever genre of film it’s spoofing, but it must accomplish such a joke about a joke per few seconds of fame, and classics like Airplane and The Naked Gun films manage to capture this so effortlessly. Considering the absolute hot streak the horror genre has been on within the past decade and the multitude of changes it’s gone through, it’s a wonder why a new Scary Movie from the Wayans brothers wasn’t on the table sooner. Fret not, however, because for all intents and purposes the new Scary Movie acts as the Wayans’ excuse to reference and joke nearly every film, cultural moment, and historical event that has happened since the franchise was taken from them in the early 2000s for better and for worse (mostly worse!).
Say what you will about the many flaws to find within the first two Wayans-helmed films of the franchise, but those films did have a certain charm to them, especially within their wackiest of moments that this new film can’t really capture. Jokes in the film tend to work whenever it just plays to a simple visual gag within its constant barrage of skits and less so in its attempts to joke about real-life events that are already outdated or mean-spirited attempts at taking jabs at the youth of today that come across as certified “how do you do, fellow kids” moments. Not every joke is a complete whiff, but the experience of watching Scary Movie is nearly as exhausting as the absolute worst the spoof genre has to offer.
The Scary Movie’s never really had much of a cohesive storyline per se, with the focus obviously being on the parodies themselves, and the same remains true here, as any story the film has is a mix of the narratives mainly following Scream (2022) in particular, with a dash of Scream VI and Halloween 2018 on top. The film’s main purpose is to act as a referendum on the recent string of reboots/legacy sequels that have been more popular in the genre recently, as a new Ghostface is targeting our characters from both old and new generations.
The main cast of the original Scary Movie films all return including Shorty (Marlon Wayans) who’s now a crypto-pilled Twitch streamer, Ray (Shawn Wayans) the gay guy who they constantly like to make jokes about how he’s gay, and, of course, Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) and Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) who are both outfitted as Laurie Strode from Halloween and Ma from Ma, respectively. Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) and Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif) are Cindy’s daughters, and Cameron Scott Roberts plays Sara’s incredibly suspicious boyfriend as new blood blends with the old, and no horror movie (or movie in general) is safe from a parody.
Look, there is a certain fun to the fact that most Scary Movies, including the originals, are just a collection of quick sketch ideas that fill up 80 minutes, but Scary Movie completely forgets why the cohesion between parody and jokes even worked within the franchise in the first place. The originals understood that within the parody, there also existed clever ways to tie each parody together that further added to either a separate joke or strengthened the take on the specific set of movies they were tackling. Here, there are so many references to movies and media that aren’t even horror-related that it’s hard to even latch onto a clever gag when one passes, since piles of “jokes” wanting you to laugh at something because you’re familiar with it exist in its place. Yes, Scary Movies have never been about “plot,” but there was a specific cadence to what was chosen to be parodied. When you’re just throwing another reference at the wall, it isn’t the same in the slightest, and it makes the misses a lot more noticeable.
This topic only deepens what is probably the biggest problem with the film, in that it somewhat exists in the same space as the later Scary Movie films or the worst of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer movies that nearly killed the spoof genre by not understanding the difference between a reference and an actual joke. At least even when they were painfully unfunny or egregiously outdated, the first two films told jokes; here, whether it’s M3GAN, Weapons, Get Out, or The Substance, the reference to the “remember that!” The media is the only type of humor the movie can provide. More often than not, when the movie actually utilizes a cute setup for a visual gag or implements a cameo in a fun way, like its opening parodying Scream VI, it’s actually funny! The Wayans, instead, however, opt for an “edgy” brand of humor to our modern culture that’s supposed to be scathing or offensive to Gen Z and touch, and either come across as incredibly outdated (they/them jokes in the big 26’?) or obvious, like COVID jokes that are SNL-level at best.
It’s a shame that after getting their franchise back after it was essentially snatched from their hands, the Wayans brothers could barely register a modern spoof that’s better than the absolute worst of the franchise, which mistakes references for humor and touching upon every cultural moment within the past 10 years is a good substitute for actually telling jokes. It has its moments of clever bits, in particular its ending reveals, and Faris and Hall, as always, are comedic gold, but watching the new Scary Movie is basically the equivalent of viewing an extended YouTube skit that haphazardly strings together references from movies you may or may not remember, which makes for about a 20% hit ratio in the funny department.
