THE STORY – Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer, Shorty, Ray, Cindy, and Brenda find themselves targeted by another mad slasher.
THE CAST – Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Damon Wayans Jr., Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Jon Abrahams, Olivia Rose Keegan, Cameron Scott Roberts, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, Gregg Wayans, Benny Zielke, Ruby Snowber & Anthony Andesron
THE TEAM – Michael Tiddes (Director), Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans & Rick Alvarez (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 96 Minutes
Between the recent dominance of horror at the box office and in discourse, and last year’s “The Naked Gun“ reboot proving that cinematic parodies could thrive again after years of dormancy, it was only a matter of time before the mega-popular “Scary Movie“ franchise was itself brought back to life. The original did come into theaters on the backs of twin slasher successes “Scream“ and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,“ after all, and those two late ’90s films both had new franchise entries in theaters in the past year. With the horror genre reaching ever greater heights of prominence in the cinematic landscape – last year’s “Weapons“ even managed a rare genre Oscar win for Amy Madigan in Best Supporting Actress – franchise creators the Wayans Brothers certainly have plenty of material to work with. But does their brand of take-no-prisoners, equal-opportunity-offensiveness stoner comedy play as well in 2026 as it did at the start of the millennium?
The “Scary Movie“ films have always felt more like a collection of sketches than a true, cohesive narrative, even though they use a recent horror film as a blueprint. In this “Scary Movie,“ it isn’t so much one recent film as the collective recent “Scream“ requel trilogy – that is, “Scream“, “Scream VI“, and “Scream 7“. As in those films, we’re introduced to the new, young cast first: Sara Campbell (Olivia Rose Keegan), daughter of Ghostface survivor Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), her totally innocent boyfriend Jack (Cameron Scott Roberts), her good friends Dei (Sydney Park) and Brad (Gregg Wayans), children of Cindy’s best friend and self-proclaimed “cool mom“ Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), and Brad’s sex-obsessed girlfriend Elle (Ruby Snowber). Sara, addicted to pills because of Cindy’s disastrous parenting, gets pulled back home after her sister, Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif), gets attacked by Ghostface. Cindy, who spent her life trying to prepare Sara and Tuesday to face off against Ghostface, is ready for him, but her doomsday prepper ways are too cringeworthy for the young crowd, so they set off in search of other Ghostface survivors. They round up as many previous cast members as were willing to work for scale to fight Ghostface. Now, they just need to figure out how many Ghostfaces there are.
While that overarching story makes sense in theory, the film’s sketch-y nature means there are many plot holes in practice. No one really goes to a “Scary Movie“ for the plot, but it would be nice if scenes actually connected to each other and made sense in context instead of just moving on to the next film scene, the Wayanses (along with co-writer Rick Alvarez and director Michael Tiddes) want to spoof. Nothing is sacred to the Wayanses, and they go all in on just about every recent horror hit you can name: “M3GAN“, “Longlegs“, “Terrifier“, “The Substance“, “Weapons“, and even “Sinners“ all get their moment of big, lowest-common-denominator parody. The screenplay doesn’t stop there, also including a golden parody of “KPOP Demon Hunters“ and a neon-drenched fight scene aping the work of 87North Productions. As with the original, every scene feels exactly like the film it’s spoofing, from the production design and cinematography to the music choices.
Unfortunately, even though they’re mostly funny, there’s not much substance to these parodies. The film’s cultural commentary doesn’t go much deeper than a surface-level swipe at Gen Z-led “cancel culture“ that feels several years out of date. The film’s attempts at meta humor have a much higher hit rate, including a winking moment of direct address in the fun opening scene and good-natured ribbing about the Wayanses coming back to the franchise for the first time since “Scary Movie 2“ in 2001. The more direct critiques of horror tropes usually land, but this franchise ran out of things to say on that front quite a long time ago, so they’re few and far between. The Wayanses’ typical brand of gross-out humor, full to bursting with dick jokes, bodily fluids, and sexual references, fills the rest of the space adequately enough. Still, some of them cross the line between being juvenile and being unfunny.
In all honesty, it feels good to have the Wayans brothers back where they belong, even if “Scary Movie” isn’t quite up to the level of the first film in the franchise. While it maintains that film’s strengths, the humor doesn’t feel as fresh as it once did. For all their willingness to offend, the Wayanses don’t have anything to say with their jokes, rendering them toothless. Sure, it’s fun watching Ghostface dressed up like a doctor, injecting Cheri Oteri’s Gail Hailstorm with a fluorescent green substance. However, aside from having no relevance to anything going on in this film, the scene has nothing to say about “The Substance“, body horror, or even the state of health care in America. The “Scary Movie“ films have always focused more on easy, cheap laughs than cutting satire, but if you’re gonna put jokes about pronouns and January 6 in your movie, long after all the good jokes about them have been made, your jokes better have a point. The returning cast, as ever, is game to do every wild and crazy thing the screenplay calls for, and the new cast members match them shot for roofied Jell-O shot (special shout-out to Keegan, who channels Faris’s energy and way of speaking with uncanny accuracy). Their infectious energy saves “Scary Movie“ when the jokes fail, which happens often enough to keep this from being top-tier in the franchise. Thankfully, the bits that land do so with the force of a canister of nitrous oxide. It’s a quick, artificial high, but it’ll make you laugh.
