SCARY MOVIE

There was a time where the Scary Movie film franchise was THE dominant force in the comedy genre. 2000 to 2006 saw the four films of the franchise gross a staggering $820 million dollars worldwide, and each and every release felt like the ‘can’t miss comedy event of the season’. And with this success, came the influx of the parody films over saturating the cinemas. Superhero Movie, Meet The Spartans, Epic Movie all came out within 18 months of the fourth Scary Movie entry in 2006. And with 2008’s Disaster Movie feeling like the nail in the coffin for the genre only 8 years after its resurgence, thanks in part to its abysmal 1% Rotten Tomatoes score, when the fifth entry of Scary Movie came out in 2013 - 7 years after its previous entry - it was clear that this beloved franchise had run out of gas.

But as the saying goes, “What’s old is new again”, and here we find ourselves with a new entry to Scary Movie, mishmashing aspects from distributor Paramount’s Scream franchise with a mélange of anything popular within the genre lately, taking a page from those EXACT franchises in understanding that people love nostalgia and the only way to draw an audience back to a Scary Movie was to reassemble its core cast and run with it.

This sixth entry, known solely as Scary Movie, sees Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon and Shawn Wayans all returning as Cindy, Brenda, Shorty and Ray, who find themselves targeted by another mad slasher in the town of Woodsville. Cindy reunites with her daughters, Sara and Tuesday, whom she abandoned years prior, and is now living as a recluse in the woods - ala the reintroduction of character of Laurie Strodd from 2018’s Halloween revamp. Even with the introduction of the new younger characters, the chemistry between the core cast remains as effortless as ever and the real drawing point. Familiar faces popping in and out of the film make for some really good laughs throughout as well, but even with all the nostalgia, I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t loving Scary Movie the way I wanted to.

The film feels flat and forced, as though the goodwill generated by the reunion is expected to do the heavy lifting that the script simply doesn't. Yes, there are a handful of genuinely big belly laughs - moments that remind you exactly why this franchise was once so beloved - but they are so few and far between that everything in between feels long, drawn out, and bloated. You'll find yourself checking the runtime more than once like I did.

The bigger problem, though, is overreach. No horror movie IP is supposedly safe, and the film takes that tagline far too literally. Rather than focusing its satirical energy, Scary Movie scatters itself across too many targets at once, cramming in parodies of so many films that none of them land with any real bite. Halloween, Scream, Get Out, and the most recent Sinners all make sense. They are the cream of the horror crop. But much like the downfall of not only the franchise itself in 2013, but of all the other fluff parody films that came in between and after, when you're spoofing everything, you're effectively spoofing nothing. A sharper, more disciplined script would have picked two or three films and skewered them properly, instead of producing a cinematic pile-up of half-baked impressions.

Scary Movie isn't without its charms, and die-hard fans of the original cast will find enough to raise a smile. Yes, there were a few laugh out loud moments, and I missed being in a packed theatre with a crowd so much. But as a comedy, it's in desperate need of some editorial courage - less really would have been so much more. It’s the second summer in a row that a tentpole comedy revamp has fallen flat for me (.....here’s looking at you Naked Gun…..). It’s sure to be a hit this weekend, and looking at a franchise best and biggest opening, so a second (....seventh…?) entry feels inevitable because well, money talks.I hope the next entry lands a little better for me and tightens things up.