{"id":41327,"date":"2023-10-11T04:25:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T08:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=41327"},"modified":"2023-10-11T14:36:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T18:36:03","slug":"ranking-the-scary-movie-series-from-best-to-worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/11\/ranking-the-scary-movie-series-from-best-to-worst\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranking the \u201cScary Movie\u201d Series from Best to Worst"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By the end of the 1990\u2019s, the big slasher movie boom had all but run out of steam, allowing the sub-genre to be ripe for spoofing. In came the Wayans family, all of whom had had previous experience with spoofs in the eighties with their classic \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Git You Sucka!\u201d Keenan Ivory Wayans took the lead directing \u201cScary Movie\u201d for Dimension Films, which not only goofed on many of the films released during that period, but had a good time with it, too.<\/p>\n

While \u201cScary Movie\u201d promised \u201cno sequels,\u201d we did get them because\u2014it\u2019s Hollywood, after all. We received about four sequels to be exact, and they all arrived with very diminishing returns. Sadly, the more the movies went on, the worse they became, so it\u2019s ironic that the series gets worse in order of the films\u2019 release.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my ranking of the series from best to worst.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Scary Movie (2000)
\n<\/strong>Not surprisingly, the first movie is pretty much the best one. Anna Faris\u2019 debut as Cindy Campbell, the protagonist of the slick and funny \u201cScream\u201d spoof is hysterical, and the Wayans\u2019 have a great time spoofing everything from this decade. There are great takes on mainly \u201cScream,\u201d but they also spoof \u201cI Know What You Did Last Summer,\u201d “The Sixth Sense,” \u201cThe Blair Witch Project,\u201d and \u201cThe Usual Suspects,\u201d only to name a few.<\/p>\n

A lot of the gags are still hilarious as the Wayans enlist some great comic talent to fill in for the major roles. For example Cheri O\u2019Teri doing a take on Courtney Cox\u2019s character is just hysterical, and where the original had Henry Winkler as the principal, David Lander appears as Principal Squiggy. Although it kind of falls apart in the finale, it\u2019s still damn funny.<\/p>\n

Scary Movie 2 (2001)
\n<\/strong>Not as good as the original, but the Wayans do give a good effort here, this time leaning in on the supernatural horror movies. They tackle everything from \u201cThe Haunting,\u201d \u201cThirteen Ghosts,\u201d \u201cPoltergeist\u201d and \u201cWhat Lies Beneath\u201d just to name a few. There\u2019s also some great comedic work by David Cross and Chris Elliot. Mainly though, the movie squeezes by thanks to the hysterical prologue where director Wayans stages a laugh out loud spoof of \u201cThe Exorcist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination of James Woods and Andy Richter as the pair of priests is priceless, and Woods displays shocking comic timing in his short time on screen. As for the rest of it, it\u2019s a solid sequel that doesn\u2019t hold up as well as the original, but is still worth a laugh or two.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Scary Movie 3 (2003)
\n<\/strong>Dimension Films did the Wayans family dirty. They pretty much took the whole \u201cScary Movie\u201d series from them and pushed on without them. The reins are handed over to David Zucker who delivers a funny follow up to the original films, but they\u2019re still pretty much lacking in what made the first two films so unique. The series digs more in to non-horror fare, offering up spoofs of \u201c8 Mile,\u201d and \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d while also satirizing fare like \u201cThe Ring,\u201d and \u201cSigns.\u201d Primarily the writers dig at \u201cThe Ring\u201d giving Cindy a child, while new cast member Simon Rex garners most of the laughs. It\u2019s not a great sequel, but it definitely has its moments.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scary Movie 4 (2006)
\n<\/strong>It\u2019s kind of sad that this is the final misadventure of Cindy Campbell and Brenda Meeks, because \u201cScary Movie 4\u201d is funniest when it\u2019s focusing on co-star Craig Bierko. Bierko does a hysterical impression of Tom Cruise in a spoof of \u201cWar of the Worlds,\u201d and is the center of the best of the film\u2019s material. Cindy\u2019s plot is sadly messy, sparse, and lacking in a lot of laughter in spite of the best efforts by folks like Bill Pullman and the returning Chris Elliot.<\/p>\n

Poor Anna Faris almost seems to play second banana this time around to Bierko who really carries this sequel. The movie truly shines when we follow his character Tom Ryan, while Faris and even Leslie Nielsen take a back seat. Hell, the movie even ends on Bierko mocking Tom Cruise\u2019s infamous \u201cOprah\u201d appearance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Scary Movie V (2013)
\n<\/strong>This is \u201cScary Movie\u201d sans Cindy Campbell and Brenda Meeks, and just about everything that made the previous movies so fun. Rather than leaning in to horror satire, this leans more in to tabloid fodder, thus making the movie painfully dated. Former Disney star Ashley Tisdale picks up the reins for Anna Faris, and falls terribly short of her predecessor. This is a pale imitation of the previous films spoofing the likes of found footage films and James Wan based horror like Paranormal Activity, Mama, Sinister, Insidious, as well as Evil Dead, and The Cabin in the Woods. It\u2019s often unfunny, and all the gags miss by miles. It\u2019s probably a good thing we won\u2019t see another \u201cScary Movie\u201d for a good, long while\u2026 or at least until Dimension gets the bright idea for a reboot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the end of the 1990\u2019s, the big slasher movie boom had all but run out of steam, allowing the sub-genre to be ripe for spoofing. In came the Wayans family, all of whom had had previous experience with spoofs in the eighties with their classic \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Git You Sucka!\u201d Keenan Ivory Wayans took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9],"tags":[219,477,898,922,973],"class_list":["post-41327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-list-junkies","tag-comedy","tag-horror","tag-satire","tag-sequel","tag-spoof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41327"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41335,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41327\/revisions\/41335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}