The Wayan Brothers, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall return for a merely okay latest Scary Movie, directed by Michael Tiddes, taking on the modern requel era.
Much to my surprise, Scary Movie (6 if we’re using numbers, but like Halloween, Candyman, or its main target Scream 5, it eshews that to make the requel point) is maddeningly… fine.
I was coming into Michael Tiddes’s film with the lowest of expectations in a series that continually asks viewers to lower their expectations, reducing parody from the full-throated joke-telling of Airplane and Naked Gun to a reference-a-rama where knowing a reference is often the full run of the joke. Okay, I’m selling it short, the first and the third (the best of them, perhaps due to the Zucker name attached) films actually understood, but the remainder are barely above the swatch of truly awful [BLANK] Movie template that came in the wake of the success. Now, with the Wayans family given control of the franchise again, they’ve been given the chance to right it (although the Haunted House movies show the failures within the series aren’t entirely Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s fault). For Scary Movie to make sure we know it’s theirs again, packed to the brim with Wayans in front of and behind the camera, written by Shawn, Marlon, Keenon Ivory, Craig Wayans (along with a non-Wayan who writes with them, Rick Alvarez, just as director Michael Tiddes does). On camera finds Marlon, Shawn, Kim, Damon Jr, Gregg, Mar, Shawn Howard, Craig, Axl, and Keeanu. Whew, so many Wayans. So go them!
And it almost works. Scary Movie starts strong and ends strong, but the 80 minutes in between are a thoroughly hit-or-miss, more miss, really, meandering attempt at parody.
The jumping off point is Scream V, with Ghostface targeting Cindy and Brenda’s kids to get Cindy back to town, talking about the requel craze and on legacy/generations of modern horror. I get it since that film restarted Scream four years ago. But it’s already had two sequels (Scream 7 references added in reshoots) since then. With Sinners, Weapons, and others (all of course get their moments here) that hit the cultural zeitgeist, why not build from there, instead of an already comic, already outdated take? Although with the money this is about to make, I bet we’ll see Obsession and Backrooms get a half-assed skewering next time. It’s odd when it treads the same jokes and references as the film it’s riffing the most on. Scream V, even moments in other films like Terrifier and Final Destination Bloodlines are already comedic to start. It’s a hat on a hat.
That harkens to the main issues: too much of the humor is tired and passe. When people can make, post, and go viral on something minutes after the screening ends, topical humor dates more quickly (thus why the ZAZ films still hold up, the mostly don’t rely on direct reference, and what does still mostly works). That leaves the the much ballohooed purposely line crossing, the “Canceling cancel culture” or “anti-woke” so many Right-wing “comedians” seem to run on. However, it barely punches at all, let alone eye-rollingly punching down. The most it gets is the opening joke of the trailer, with a Scream VI subway attack. Snooze. It’s surprisingly toothless.
However, as it propels to the climax, it comes together with the final 15 minutes actually landing very well, finally finding the voice and getting to the point it’s been meandering around. It legitimately and fully works for these golden minutes, bookending with a legitimately solid opening with Teanna Taylor lampooning Scream VI’s opening. Where’s that tight, focused telling in the rest? All too often, it stops everything cold to have a disconnected parody just to say they did it. Sometimes it works like an obvious just put in Michael riff or dreadful Candyman or Nosferatu takes.
It is nice to have most of the main cast of the original back. Anna Faris and Regina Hall continue to be the standouts, doing good work for what paltry scraps they’re bringing. Hall has proven herself to be a truly amazing actor, especially in recent years. Even with her prestige, she’s not slumming at all. Her Brenda is made over to be like Octavia Spencer’s Ma, a decent hit from a decade ago, I mostly forgot about. Tiddes and Wayans assume the audience has also forgotten the movie by directly stating, “This is referencing this movie.” Scary Movie does this often. Too often. So many of the jokes are “hey, know this thing” with a disconnected sequence, hitting us in the face with a hammer that says I Know What You Did Last Summer.
That said, there are chuckles – at most – to be found here and there in the middle. Parody works best when taking something straight and adding the absurdity to it; an extra level of oddity, bending the rules and expectations, talking to cliches and tropes, and taking it up a notch (or in last year’s hilarious Naked Gun, the coffee gag. Funny enough, one of that film’s strongest gags was talking about how these movies have dated references). Scary Movie works when it rips to that, rather than say “Hey, you guys remember the Substance?” But things do land, with the note that the things that work are repeated and stretched like a single-joke SNL sketch. But they did get a few laughs. Various background or one-off jokes get chuckles, enough to kite the film’s enjoyment for another few minutes.
As for the rest of the cast? Shawn Wayans as Ray has enough charisma and deadpan delivery to make the same joke, “hey, he’s gay,” land even that was awkward by the second film. Marlon Wayans’s Shorty, well, he makes many people laugh, but me; eh, he’s also a single joke, but annoyingly and loudly done. Returning David Sheridan as Doofy was probably better left in Scary Movie 1, and Sheri Oteri looks awkward, though both are needed for Scream V riff. The new cast ranges from pretty good, but woefully underused like Benda’s kids, DEI and Brad (aka Mindy and Chad), played by Sydney Park and Gregg Wayans, to truly awful. The new leads are atrocious, with Olivia Rose Keegan riffing on Sam Carpenter, replicating Farris but annoyingly and gratingly so, loudly screaming through the role. Same with Savannah Lee Nassif’s “Tuesday” (ugh); I think I winced at every line reading.
Like Faces of Death, it’s a better Scream film than this year’s Scream 7, which may have been so dumb it nearly became Scary Movie VI with how many laughs it had, although those were not intentional. Scary Movie has moments, and I’m very glad it returns to the Wayans’ control after they were messed out of it long ago. The film, directed by Michael Tiddes and written by a familiy of reunion of Wayans, has its moments, but is lost under so much that doesn’t.