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Upon its release, Scary Movie revitalized the parody genre. Once a dominant force in the 1980s, the genre had been steadily losing steam throughout the ’90s, with each new entry seeming worse than the last. Ironically, Scary Movie ended up repeating that same cycle, spawning an avalanche of parody films throughout the 2000s, including its own sequels, with diminishing returns becoming the norm. With the release of Scary Movie 6, I thought it would be fun to revisit what I consider the only 2000s parody movie that was genuinely funny and see whether it still holds up today.
Directed by the Wayans brothers, Scary Movie follows a group of high school friends who accidentally kill a man in a hit-and-run incident and agree to keep it a secret. A year later, they begin receiving mysterious threats from a masked killer who appears to know what they did. As the body count rises, the friends scramble to uncover the killer’s identity while navigating increasingly absurd situations. The film parodies popular horror movies of the late 1990s, particularly Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, blending slasher-movie conventions with crude humor, pop-culture references, and over-the-top gags.
One of Scary Movie‘s greatest strengths is how fully it commits to being a parody of Scream. It follows the original film’s plot remarkably closely, occasionally even lifting dialogue word for word, before twisting familiar scenes into setups for increasingly absurd jokes. The gags come at such a relentless pace that not all of them work, but there are so many packed into every scene that a good number are bound to land.
Scary Movie also manages to create characters who, despite being parodies, have largely transcended the film itself. The standout is undoubtedly Doofy, an absurd exaggeration of Dewey from the Scream movies. He’s easily the funniest character in the film and completely steals the spotlight from Marlon Wayans’ stoner character, who was probably intended to become the movie’s breakout icon.
A movie like Scary Movie can’t really be judged by the same standards as a conventional comedy, because it isn’t trying to be one. These aren’t realistic characters inhabiting a believable world. Parody movies like this are essentially live-action slapstick cartoons, where logic takes a backseat to whatever joke can generate the biggest laugh. As a result, the only meaningful criteria are whether the film is funny and entertaining, and on both counts Scary Movie succeeds.
That said, the movie does have some drawbacks. Having seen Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer is almost essential if you want to understand a large portion of the jokes and references. Likewise, cameos from figures like Carmen Electra and parodies of commercials such as Budweiser’s “Whassup?” campaign will likely go over the heads of viewers who weren’t around in 2000. Films like The Naked Gun remain timeless because they rely less on contemporary pop culture, whereas Scary Movie is unmistakably a product of its era. For this forty-something viewer, however, who remembers all those references, most of them still land surprisingly well.
