It's been two and a half decades since the Wayans parodied Scream and the horror genre as a whole with Scary Movie. It's success spawned a handful of sequels, some fun some barely watchable, but the Wayans left the franchise after the second film due to creative differences and contract disputes. Much like with every major horror franchise now, the originals are back with Scary Movie, the 2026 version.
For the first half of the film I really wasn't on board. You can't go into this without expecting a lot of stupid jokes, but there were a lot of points early on that felt like a bad SNL sketch rather than a good comedy. There is a great opening bit with Teyana Taylor, but aside from that I found the Scream recreations to be honestly a bit too cringey. There reaches a point though where the film goes off on its own with the narrative only loosely holding it together, and that's where the team finds their groove. Some scenes genuinely made me cackle, compared to the first half of the film where the new cast had me rolling my eyes a lot more than laughing.
A big part in this movie's success is bringing back the big players of the original cast. Anna Faris is hilarious as always, and Regina Hall steals every scene she's in. I was worried that Marlon Wayans' stoner bit would get old this time around, but he's so naturally hilarious that it still made me laugh, and Damon Wayans while a bit underused is also fantastic. The new cast on the other hand didn't really work for me at all, aside from the Mindy stand-in Sydney Park and Savannah Lee Nassif as Tuesday (the Jenna Ortega parody), the new ensemble largely felt like the kind of performers you'd see several films into a parody franchise when the quality falls off a cliff.
Much like the original, this is largely spoofing the Scream franchise, this time tackling the fifth and sixth films which rebooted the classic slasher series. It very loosely follows a group of friends as a masked killer returns after 26 years to take them out, although the plot is always tertiary when it comes to these movies. Any narrative is largely used to take us from comedic set piece to comedic set piece, making fun of Scream and countless other horror movies along the way.
For the first half of the film I really wasn't on board. You can't go into this without expecting a lot of stupid jokes, but there were a lot of points early on that felt like a bad SNL sketch rather than a good comedy. There is a great opening bit with Teyana Taylor, but aside from that I found the Scream recreations to be honestly a bit too cringey. There reaches a point though where the film goes off on its own with the narrative only loosely holding it together, and that's where the team finds their groove. Some scenes genuinely made me cackle, compared to the first half of the film where the new cast had me rolling my eyes a lot more than laughing.
A big part in this movie's success is bringing back the big players of the original cast. Anna Faris is hilarious as always, and Regina Hall steals every scene she's in. I was worried that Marlon Wayans' stoner bit would get old this time around, but he's so naturally hilarious that it still made me laugh, and Damon Wayans while a bit underused is also fantastic. The new cast on the other hand didn't really work for me at all, aside from the Mindy stand-in Sydney Park and Savannah Lee Nassif as Tuesday (the Jenna Ortega parody), the new ensemble largely felt like the kind of performers you'd see several films into a parody franchise when the quality falls off a cliff.
Parody movies are a wildly tough subgenre to crack, but this manages to deliver a good enough time. There are a ton of parts that don't work, but a ton more that had the whole theatre laughing. I don't think I'll need to watch this again any time soon, but I had a lot more fun with it than I expected. 3/5
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