Scary Movie (2000)

Truly Dreadful Film

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A group of teenagers including Cindy Campbell and Bobby Prinze, accidentally hit a man when driving, and dispose of the body, but now they are being stalked by a very recognisable masked killer. The victim count increases, whilst Cindy must survive the carnage that has she has seen in so many films before. Scary Movie started the new millenium with a big bang and although we're talking about a Parody we're actually talking about a good one and very amusing that has alot of good humor and the perfomances are just terrific and with lines that are popular.

One of the best in its sub-genre. The whole movie is a parody of Scream, but along the way, it parodies about 60 more movies from the beginning of 70's to the end of the century. It is not a masterpiece of cinematography, but it surely is a masterpiece of a mockery of pop culture.7,5/10Back in a theater, I recognized just a few movies it mocks, but now I caught about 20. Can any of you do better ?! :DScream The Exorcist Grease The Sixth Sense Halloween I Know What You Did Last Summer Friday the 13th The Shining Dawson's Creek The Matrix and/or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Baywatch Basic Instinct Cruel Intentions The Shawshank Redemption The Usual Suspects Riverdance Thinner Titanic Urban Legend The Blair Witch Project

Coming out in 2000, the Wayans and their parody entrepreneurs were up against another film stomping on the Scream license, that being Scream 3. One would end a franchise (for a while) that started with greatness and the other would start another franchise that wish it could be as clever as the other film however dumb it is.Much how Craven revisited Woodsboro eleven years later, there was a morbid curiosity in seeing if sixteen years later Scary Movie ever deserved even one sequel. Almost guiltily the potential for a franchise is there in a lowbrow if decent enough comedy. Perhaps it's an ironic form of nostalgia having witnessed the desolate laugh vacuums that were the later entries such as Epic Movie or Disaster Movie but the original is not that bad at all.It's biggest compliment being it actually resembles a film. In that it follows a basic three act structure, has a natural pace adopted from source material, and even characters that abide by basic archetypes while showing a smidgen of actor personality. These all seem a given however after enduring the quality of the latter films, the restrained assemblage of film parodies here all compliment each other well, tied together and flowing along with a sense of competency long gone now.After complimenting the actual ability to parody horror films, this is also a Wayans film. It's not entirely unexpected that a fair 80% of the punchlines are basically "the joke is I'm black" with the other percent being "I'm gay". While the diet-homophobia is fairly tone deaf (the killer's motive simply being he's gay, oh wait, one of them just 'acts' gay... cue laughter) the Wayans do manage to land a solid amount of racial humour. One timeless if easy gag being the all black news team reporting they're "getting the f*** outta here!" before speeding off. It's also funny in an ever-so-slightly awkward way watching Scream afterwards the sheer complete absence of any PoC actors in that film, which seems to be intentionally and heavily corrected in the sequel.It's this humour that seems to answer the age old debate of whether a bold and uncompromising comedy like Blazing Saddles could be made today. Let's be clear: the Wayans are no Mel Brooks. That being said, it's almost disappointing that after a first solid entry, the Scary Movie franchise could've improved over time and become almost respectable in skewering of the genre. Unfortunately it strayed from scary movies like Icarus attempting to tackle all of cinema and forgot what the word satire meant.

With all the various teen horrors's of the 90's and early 2000's, what else is better than to completely lampoon them in ridiculous style. Coming from a comedy styling much like that of films such as "Airplane" and "Naked Gun" but much more crude, comes Scary Movie, with it's jokes that are completely insane and plot that well, doesn't really make sense a lot of the time. I thought before I watched this that it looked like a movie I simply wouldn't like, but it surprised me, it is far far from perfect but still, a funny movie.It's all based around the fact the our main characters killed a man a year before and someone is out to get them all, but who?. Of course the story is just a rip off of "Scream" but that is the whole point, in fact at various times throughout it is alluded to. The narrative plays out like a child had tried to write a film but then some guys called the Wayans brothers came in and added some rude joke to the pot, oh and on that point about pot, well watch it and you'll see what I mean.The cast has people such as Anna Faris, Jon Abrahams, Shannon Elizabeth and of course Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans who all could of destroyed their careers here. I did though enjoy the cast, they mix the right amount of humour into the bad acting that when by the end, you don't know if they couldn't act or not. One of my favourite characters from this is Shorty played by Marlon Wayans who's stoner comedy is hilarious and makes some scenes truly laugh out loud. And on the point of laugh out loud moments, the scream masked murderer is hilarious, watch out for when their mask changes facial expressions, just very funny. That all said about the jokes, the film can be near hit and miss. It is true probably that this is way too crude and stupid to be OK but I felt it is, it's enjoyable, doesn't overstay it's welcome and as mentioned before, can have laugh out loud moments too. Sure the Wayans don't always make the best decisions in film and when your film has Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer co writing it, you may expect your movie's reputation to drop really low. A thing I think the Wayans do well here though is mix the crude with genuine jokes, not only is it a good parody of slasher movies, but can turn serious moments into hilarious ones in a second.Now who might like this movie, well of course this is right up some people's street when it comes to comedy, it's the kind of movie where you might expect a critic to recommend this to teens. The truth is though that teens or well maybe people who were teens when all these horror movies were around, will really enjoy it and probably laugh(well at least I hope as if you don't laugh at this there isn't much else to enjoy). Don't just watch this like you expect it to be bad, give it a go and like me you might be surprised how funny you found it.Overall a movie I personally found kind of OK, maybe wrestled with my thoughts a little as to whether it was pretty so-so but I think all in all it is funny enough to be mostly positive stuff. Wouldn't really say people who consider themselves "connoisseurs" of fine comedy would enjoy this but to the hell with most comedy, this is stupid enough to be fun to watch.