Oh yeah, I remember this franchise … and now I remember why they stopped making these film: they aren’t funny. This perpetual Wayans Brothers’ horror film send up doesn’t really work as a comedy, and that’s the closest it comes to entertainment. It certainly doesn’t work as horror or drama, either. These very disjointed scripts serve much more as a reminder of films that you might have seen over the past year or two. I suppose in that way, they open the door for trivia or nostalgia, but there’s something in Scary Movie (and all Scary Movies for that matter) that pulls up well shy of entertainment.
For the Scary Movie impaired, this franchise is a parody/satire of the recent past of horror films. What started as a send-up of the Scream franchise years ago has retained the Ghostface killer to echo the Scream franchise, but also has thrown in moments from several other horror films as well. These moments aren’t terribly funny and often serve as plot non-sequiturs, hence cinephiles like myself might get a kick out of recognizing moments from other, better films, like The Substance, and Sinners, and God-help-me, even M3GAN.
The plots of these films also copy the basic plots of the Scream films – a Ghostface killer is executing folks one-by-one, but Scary Movie substitutes tension and thrill with … comedy, I think. Lord knows, I wasn’t laughing.
There was a part that struck me in this particular iteration, and it didn’t strike me well. This is the first Scary Movie in years and it reunited veteran Scary Moviers Cindy (Anna Faris) and Brenda (Regina Hall). There’s a moment in which Cindy has to explain her estrangement from Brenda and offers, “I’m a Republican, so I’m supposed to be racist now.”
Somebody will have to explain that joke to me.
I mean, seriously. The more I think about it, the less funny it feels. Are you trying to say, “Republicans are labeled as ‘racist,’ but aren’t really, ha ha ha, so the joke is on you!” ? Because I think that is the joke here: Republicans are perceived as racist, but really aren’t, see?
Ummmm, ok. Look, I’m really not trying to create a straw man here. We’ve had decades of Republican racism in my lifetime, perceived or no. In the past two years, this has taken the form of pushing ICE on cities, elimination of DEI measures, voter ID laws, and gerrymandering to eliminate the power of Black and brown votes among other policies. Oh, and let’s not forget the blanket support for the Trump, easily the most racist president the United States has had since we decided maybe presidents shouldn’t be racist. These are all racist things. They are all Republican. And there’s much more where that came from. Protest all you want; it’s true. Hence, the burden is not on people like me to rethink our assessment; it’s on the Republicans to -quite literally- promote any policy that champions equality.
Wait. Wait. I’ve heard about this. Is this … Right Wing humor?! Oh my; I thought it was a myth. I mean, RW people aren’t funny. At all. Nazis aren’t funny. The Klan isn’t
funny. Punching down isn’t funny. Later in the film, a Black woman is attacked on a train and gets offended when her would-be killer does not use her proper pronouns. And, like a revival tent uprising, when the other people on the train hear that the victim prefers “they/them,” the other folks on the train line up to help with the murder, each in turn, voicing their displeasure at the politics of woke.
Yeah, that’s fucking hilarious; I can see why Scary Movie is a smash hit. [Eyeroll]
Politics aside, Scary Movie is disjointed to the point of exhaustion as, as I said, just not terribly funny. What qualifies for a plot is a Ghostface killer or two … or three … or four attacking the characters in the film at random, while scenes from other films are re-created in mocking form. The hit rate for jokes is roughly about 10%. I did like a part early on when characters met in the parking lot of an amusement park and the rides went all haywire in the background. I also enjoyed the moment when a Sinners “invite me in” vampire scenario turned into a possible homosexual encounter. These moments, however, were few and far between. Mostly, I watched this film saying, “yeah, I know that film … that’s not funny… yeah, I know that film … that’s not funny.” I did quite enjoy it when Scary Movie killed off one of the White Chicks. Now, that was funny.
There once lived a collection of Wayans
Their comedy has decades of play-ins
There was genius in Shuffle
And yet, post kerfuffle
It’s done nothing but rotten decayins
Rated R, 96 Minutes
Director: Michael Tiddes
Writer: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Keenan Ivory Wayans
Genre: Horror, maybe?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Me, I think? Which is kinda sad, as I did not enjoy it
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: If you have seen any of the films Scary Movie references, you’ll be sad you’re not watching that one instead.
