Scary Movie Review: A Trash Fire That Aims Low And Hits The Mark

There is an amusing moment in Michael Tiddes' new comedy "Scary Movie" — the sixth in the series — wherein the mysterious masked killer Ghostface is chasing the frantic heroine Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) through a hospital. He swings his knife at her, missed, and embeds the blade in an anatomy poster on the wall. Rather unexpectedly, the drawing on the poster screams in pain. It's a marvelously absurd moment, and it elicited a genuine giggle out of me. 

When "Scary Movie" is sticking to tiny, random absurd moments like that, it's actually funny. There are, I admit with open throat, scant moments of genuine comedic surprise in this otherwise puerile trash fire. The movie, like its five predecessors, rapidly and without grace, parodies a heaping handful of recent horror releases by lifting popular images, stripping them of their production value, and adding weed, sex, and penis jokes. 

For a spell, the movie also attempts to tell a real story and involve legacy characters who have been involved since the first "Scary Movie" in 2000, but it starts to emerge as its own entity when it loses sight of all its structure, takes a huge metaphorical bong rip, and forgets itself in its own madness. A solid 20 minutes of this film is nothing but disconnected vignettes and freestyle spoofery that can, even when not especially funny, be admired for its directionless chaos. 

The film also aims to be offensive, and I suppose I can congratulate the filmmakers for cheesing me off several times with their tone-deaf attempts at topicality. No one will laugh when Ghostface kills a trans character, announcing that he will now identify as a corpse. Who would have thought the Wayans family would eventually be making the same tired transphobic jokes as the Babylon Bee?

The "Scary Movie" series has, of course, never been smart or poignant satire. Indeed, the 2000 original was, more than anything, a spoof of Wes Craven's 1996 slasher "Scream." "Scream" was an odd target for spoofery, as it was already, in itself, a self-aware satire of hackneyed 1980s slasher tropes that had, by '96, been dulled through repeated use. "Scary Movie" didn't have much to add, then, other than fart jokes, gay panic, weed gags, and scenes where men ejaculate hundreds of gallons of semen ("Scary Movie 1" also dovetailed with the gross-out comedy trends of the day). This ain't exactly Ambrose Bierce. 

This isn't a very original observation about the "Scary Movie" series, but their makers don't possess a point of view on the films they're lampooning. Watching this new film, I see slapstick spoofs of "Terrifier 3," "Megan," "Scream VI," "Get Out," "The Substance," "K-Pop Demon Hunters," both versions of "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "Ma," "Smile," "Sinners," and dozens of others. In a joke I appreciated, Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) yells out that she would like to make a reference to David Robert Mitchell's "It Follows," but that she will refrain because that film is too obscure. 

But apart from a few direct editorializing from the characters (Regina Hall's character notes, after making a reference, that "no one saw that one"), there is no critical commentary on the objects in question. Screenwriters Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans, and Rick Alvarez have made a satire with no teeth, or even a mouth. All they have is idiocy, and that's not really enough for a whole feature film. I have no mouth, and I must scream. 

The only point I could see was ... well, downright regressive. The themes of the movie seem to be complaints about progressive politics, and the characters hammer on about how annoying modern young people are, what with their newfangled gender identities. There is a scene on a subway wherein a nonbinary character played by Sydney Park announces, while being stabbed, that their pronouns are they/them. This inspires everyone in the subway to get up and take a crack at stabbing them. The nonbinary character is mercilessly murdered while a nearby whining Karen is defended, and the filmmakers giggle cruelly to themselves. What are the Wayans even doing here?

In terms of its story, "Scary Movie" takes most of its plot cues (such as they are) from 2022's "Scream" and 2023's "Scream VI." The cold open is a genuinely funny bit with Teyana Taylor playing herself, using her New York street smarts to get the drop on Ghostface. He stabs her in the stomach, but her mighty abs save her from harm. After that, the movie settles into a barely-there plot, wherein Sara rushes to the bedside of her little sister Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif) after she survives a Ghostface attack. Anna Faris and Regina Hall return and are wholly dedicated to their parts.

I'm sorry to say that jokes made at the expense of queer people — and there are way too many of them — don't stand in as a substitute for pop culture deconstruction. If anything, the Wayans have aged out. They still think it's funny that gay people exist, and make buffoons or victims of its queer characters. 

Co-screenwriter Keenan Ivory Wayans created "In Living Color," a revolutionary sketch comedy show that brought Black concerns, and a great deal of style, into the comedy mainstream in the early 1990s. Many of the sketches were crass, silly, and dumb, but it felt important at the time. The new "Scary Movie" features several scenes where the characters riff briefly on notions of Black excellence and the racism the white characters casually flaunt. But it's an echo of an echo. 

And all done at the expense of queer people. Shawn Wayans reprises his role of Ray Wilkins, a closeted gay man whose every move is that of a mincing queer stereotype. The joke isn't that he's closeted. The joke is that Shawn Wayans makes everyone uncomfortable by fellating microphones and joshing about committing sexual assault on other men. The gag seems to be that the Wayans find gay sex funny. I hated that character so damn much.

And this is nothing to speak of the skewed, limp attempts at topical, political humor. There is a joke about gardeners being apprehended by ICE, for instance, and it's shocking how unfunny it is, not to mention lacking any sort of edge. Weird to feature ICE in your movie and not do anything to cut them down.

But "Scary Movie" thinks offensive queer jokes and topical references stand in for a perspective. Instead, it's a bunch of kids wiping boogers on each other and giggling. That might make you laugh when you're five, I suppose. "Scary Movie" hovers around that level of intelligence. 

/Film Rating 2.5 out of 10

"Scary Movie" opens in theaters on June 5, 2026.