Scary Movie

When the Wayans Brothers made the original Scary Movie in 2000, it was a novelty that wore itself out quickly, leading to one uninspired sequel after another until it inevitably became self-lampooning.

Well, now the Wayans are back in control of the franchise with this sixth installment titled Scary Movie (go figure), and it’s a classic case of too little, too late, and not knowing when to stop flogging the horse of parody after it’s already dead.

This sequel reunites not only the Wayans, who cowrote and co-produce, but also the main stars Marlon and Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall. Faris is back as Cindy Campbell (obviously inspired by Scream’s Neve Campbell), who is reunited with her daughters, Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) and Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif), after the latter survives an attack from the reemerging Ghostface. 10 points if you can guess which character Tuesday is parodied after.

This leads Cindy to reunite with her old comrades, Marlon Wayans’ Shorty, Shawn Wayans’ Ray, and Regina Hall’s Brenda, to find out who Ghostface is. Plus, it introduces other characters who are nothing but setups for all the lamebrain jokes and parodies, and I’ll give the other actors a break by not mentioning them.

No one goes into a Scary Movie for the plot, but rather what the filmmakers will be parodying or attempting to take a stab at (no pun intended). As for movies, it’s surprisingly a little more restrained, as it doesn’t go full-blown parody. The movies that do get made fun of are Get Out, Sinners, Weapons and The Substance. The Sinners sequence provides one of the very few laughs in the movie.

Other events and ideas the movie tries to satirize include Covid, January 6th, and the idea of something called a “rebootiquel,” which is a combination of a reboot and a sequel, but its explanation is more dopey than inspired, and it’s just as idiotic as anything else in the movie.

This sixth installment mostly consists of gags without a purpose, and many of them are done out of sheer desperation, hoping the audience won’t realize how tired and scattershot the material really is. What’s worse is that the ending is threatening us with another installment.

The Wayans brothers can be funny, and they’ve proven it before. But this feels creatively bankrupt. What’s more troubling than the lack of laughs is the sense that they don’t realize their biggest cash cow was a product of its time—and that maybe it’s time to move on.

Grade: C-

(Rated R for crude sexual content, graphic nudity, strong violence, and drug content and language throughout.)