Crew
Director – Michael Tiddes, Screenplay – Rick Alvarez, Craig Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans & Shawn Wayans, Producers – Rick Alvarez, Craig Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Marlon Wayans & Shawn Wayans, Photography – Terry Stacey, Music – Haim Mazar, Visual Effects Supervisor – Matt Skuta, Visual Effects – ExodusFX (Supervisor – Muhammad Nur Huda), Image Trading Company (Supervisor – Chris Wells), Splice (Supervisor – Tina Wallace) & Temprimental VFX (Supervisors – Maruthu Chakaravarthi & Luca Saviotti), Special Effects – Innovation Workshop Inc. (Supervisor – Joshua Pinney), Production Design – Nicole Ellespuru. Production Company – Wayans Brothers.
Cast
Marlon Wayans (Shorty/Joe/Tiffany/Count Brolock), Shawn Wayans (Ray), Anna Faris (Cindy Campbell), Regina Hall (Brenda), Olivia Rose Keegan (Sara), Dave Sheridan (Doofy/Ghostface), Cameron Scott Roberts (Jack), Savannah Lee Nassif (Tuesday), Kim Wayans (Nurse Ratchett), Benny Zielke (Jess), Lochlyn Munro (Greg), Chris Elliott (Shorthand), Cheri Oteri (Gail Hailstorm), Teyana Taylor (Herself), Sydney Park (DEI), Gregg Wayans (Brad), Kenan Thompson (Jermaine), Damon Wayans Jr (Agent Underwood), Heidi Gardner (Agent Berger), Anthony Anderson (Himself), Carmen Electra (Bartender), Shaquille O’Neal (Himself), Kai Cenat (Himself)
Plot
When Cindy Campbell’s daughter Tuesday is attacked and hospitalised by someone wearing a Ghostface mask, her sister and Brenda’s children go to visit Cindy. Cindy has become a recluse, locked in her house and armed at fear of Ghostface attacking again. As further Ghostface killings occur, Ray, Shorty, Brenda and Deputy Doofy reunite to deal with the new killer.
Made by the Wayans brothers for Miramax (back in the Harvey Weinstein heyday), Scary Movie (2000) was one of the biggest hits of 2000 and ended in that year’s Box-Office Top 10. It was the Wayans’s spoofing the recent hits of Scream (1996) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) with a series of crude and sophomoric gags. The Wayans Brothers and Anna Faris made a sequel with Scary Movie 2 (2001) where they expanded to cover other horror films and recent hits. The Wayans’s departed and the directorial reins were taken over by David Zucker who put Anna Faris and Regina Hall through Scary Movie 3 (2003) and Scary Movie 4 (2006), while a new cast came in for Scary MoVie (2013), all continuing the movie parodies in similar crude vein. The Wayans clan now return with what they snidely refer to as a ‘rebootyquel’.
In recent years, we had a successful revival of the Halloween series with Halloween (2018) and sequels. Crucially this led to a revival of the Scream series with Scream (2022), Scream VI (2023) and Scream 7 (2026). And so the Wayans clan have returned to reclaim the franchise and offer up a parody on the horror films of the 2020s. Expectedly, Scary Movie launches into both the recent Halloween and Scream revivals. The opening is a spoof on the opening of Scream VI with Teyana Taylor being lured into an alleyway from a bar by a Tinder date who turns out to be Ghostface before she promptly turns on him joined by a host of others who appear out of the woodwork “You fuckin’ with a New York bitch.” This also segues into someone watching this on a movie screen, akin to the opening of Scre4m (2011). When we meet Anna Faris again, she is gone all recluse on us and is wearing a pair of oversized wire-frame glasses just like Jamie Lee Curtis when we saw her again in Halloween in 2018.
Aside from that, the rebootyquel leaps in with a bunch of spoofs of horror movies that have appeared ever since the last Scary Movie in 2013. These include:- the sex in the car scene from It Follows (2014); a very scary looking Santa that seems modelled on the clown in Terrifier (2016); the tea cup scene from Get Out (2017); the Candyman’s appearance from Candyman (2021); the smile from Smile (2022) – everyone smiles because they are in a psychiatric ward; the killer doll from M3gan (2022); tv’s Wednesday (2022- ) with a character named Tuesday; the killer from Longlegs (2024); Nosferatu (2024) with Marlon Wayans as a vampire called Count Brolock; plus assorted scenes from The Substance (2024), Wicked: Part 1 (2024), KPop Demon Hunters (2025), Sinners (2025), Weapons (2025) and Michael (2026).
What is also noticeable is just how the Scary Movie series has aged itself out. Both Marlon and Shawn Wayans are going through the same routines, now both in their fifties, while original director Keenen Ivory Wayans is present on script and as producer. As with the Halloween and Scream revival series, we also have children of the original characters involved. Now a number of other members of the Wayans clan have been brought into the fold, including sister Kim Wayans, Damon’s son Damon Jr, and nephews Gregg and Clark, who were presumably too young or not established enough to be part of the original movies. The actual directorial duties are inherited by Michael Tiddes, who put Marlon Wayans through his paces in the Scary Movie-alike copycat A Haunted House (2013) and sequel, a further film parody Fifty Shades of Black (2016), as well as Naked (2017) and Sextuplets (2019).
There is a good deal of social commentary humour to this film that the originals never had, picking up on events and social changes that have happened since the first films came out. Shorty is now a social media influencer and engaged in crypto trading; Ghostface joins a livestream to conduct a kill. Ray has undergone conversion therapy and there is some contrition about how the original films readily came with quite a degree of homophobic humour. There are assorted references to ChatGPT, Grindr, #MeToo, Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, The Epstein Files, the Covid lockdown, far right Black commentator Candace Owens, the Capitol Riots and the manosphere. The Wayans’ spend time poking fun at the woke brigade, diversity hires, trans inclusion and they/them pronouns – we even get a character named DEI. It is also snidely mentioned how namedropping P. Diddy has dated the series.
Where the film comes into its own is [PLOT SPOILERS] its witty climax that has multiple revelations of who Ghostface is. The final ones are the Wayans Brothers themselves who want to attack Anna Faris and Regina Hall for appearing in Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4 without them, before turning on several other celebrities (who also appear as Ghostface), including attacking Shaquille O’Neal for making Kazaam (1996). This is really quite funny and is what that makes Scary Movie one of the better sequels.
Trailer here