We all know what we’re getting into with the Scary Movie franchise. It’s going to be gross. It’s going to be irreverent. And it’s going to be filled with lots of jokes about other movies, mostly from the horror genre. The formula has been the same since the 2000 original, itself paying homage to a spoof genre made famous decades earlier by the Zucker brothers, Mel Brooks, and others. The new film very much fits into that framework and even tries to update it in some ways. But, for the most part, it’s never consistently funny or interesting enough to work overall.
After losing control of the franchise for its three most recent installments, this sixth Scary Movie is back in the hands of the Wayans family. Marlon and Shawn write, produce, and star, while various other members of the family pitch in either in small cameos or behind the camera. It’s truly a family affair, and that chip on their shoulder from losing the franchise for all this time plays a big role in the film.
Directed by Michael Tiddes, the sixth Scary Movie (just called Scary Movie) follows the formula of the fifth Scream (just called Scream) almost religiously. The Ghostface killer is back, and they’re targeting a younger generation in order to get the original cast members back into the mix. Olivia Rose Keegan and Savannah Lee Nassif play sisters Sara and Tuesday, daughters of Cindy (Anna Faris), who has spent the last several decades pulling a Jamie Lee Curtis from the 2018 Halloween, waiting and preparing for Ghostface to come back. Eventually, original characters like Brenda (Regina Hall), Shorty (Marlon Wayans), and Ray (Shawn Wayans) weave back into the story too, some of whom have kids who are involved, and others are just still acting like kids all these years later.
Scary Movie actually starts pretty well, using that Scream-inspired plot to weave in scenes and inspirations not just from Halloween, but Final Destination, Sinners, One Battle After Another, and others. But eventually, it all becomes incredibly jumbled. What was at first a funny story, seamlessly weaving between movie references, gets overwhelmingly bombarded with extraneous jokes and scenes that feel like they’re from a completely different movie. First, it’s a long, extended, sexually charged dance sequence. Then it’s a long, extended, drug-induced animated sequence. Or maybe it’s simply the trailer for a completely unrelated movie cut into the middle of this one with very little motivation. All of those things that happen in Scary Movie.
Those scenes and others work against the cohesion and momentum the film had built, instead reverting to a scatterbrained avalanche of references that sometimes hit, but more often miss. Does it matter that one scene features characters we haven’t met yet and we don’t meet again? Nope, as long as we get a Longlegs joke in there. Does it matter that characters who have clearly met earlier in the film pretend they don’t know each other? Nope, as long as we get yet another Sinners joke in there. Scary Movie is supposed to be irreverent. It’s supposed to be stupid. But it’s also supposed to work together and make at least a tiny bit of sense. This one rarely does.
And so Scary Movie barrels on. Every once in a while, an idea or joke will land hard, and it’s like “Oh, right, this is what the movie is capable of.” But then right after, several will bomb even worse, and it’s just uncomfortable and disappointing.
Bound to be the biggest talking point in the film, though, is how the film also deals with modern culture. Several scenes, such as an extended sequence on Twitch or another of characters playing a video game, play like Scary Movie is catering to Gen Z. Other scenes directly contradict that, making the younger generation the butt of the joke. The film also thinks it’s pulling no punches with jokes involving trans people, pronouns, and other (for lack of a better word) “woke” ideas, but they just never land right. They’re not even particularly offensive on the surface. Just incredibly obvious.
I will say, by the end, Scary Movie made a few surprising choices that almost made me forgive the uneven mess that happened before. But then, just when you think it’s okay to take a victory lap, it adds two end credits scenes that once again shine a light on its biggest problems.
Fans of the Scary Movie franchise as a whole who watch a lot of movies might find enough in the new installment to at least not regret the cost of a movie ticket. But that’s the bar. This isn’t as groundbreaking or even as entertaining as those first Wayans installments. It’s an admirable attempt at reviving the franchise, but ultimately it doesn’t quite work.
Scary Movie is now in theaters.
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