‘Scary Movie’ Review: Wayans Brothers Slasher Spoof Gets a Reboot

It was around the third or fourth franchise chapters that both Scary Movie and Scream, the horror satire it started out parodying, veered so far into meta humor that they became narratively broken, too self-reflexive to be of interest to anyone but teenagers busy congratulating themselves on every reference they got. Both series peaked early and both sputtered on to diminishing returns before giving up the ghost (sorry) — at least until the IP was dusted off again, to arguable gain in the case of Scream.

Thirteen years have passed since the last Scary Movie, which means there’s been a decade-plus of horror ripe for spoofing. The trouble is that’s all this new entry has to offer. It reassembles the OG quartet of Marlon Wayans’ Shorty, Shawn Wayans’ Ray, Anna Faris’ Cindy and Regina Hall’s Brenda alongside next-generation additions in the form of their high school-age offspring, plus the odd boyfriend or girlfriend. But the actors are reduced to joke machines trapped in a nonsensical nonplot, and while some of those gags yield laughs, a far greater number fall flat.

Sure, it’s fun to see the familiar faces — well, not so much Dave Sheridan’s dimwit Doofy, whose intellectual disability sits uncomfortably with 2026 sensibilities, no doubt intentionally — but this belated sixth installment makes the perplexing choice to go back to the same overload of winking self-awareness that put the first nails in the franchise’s coffin. There’s nothing here that comes even close to the inspired comedy of Brenda Meeks seeing Shaky-speare in Love and driving an entire movie theater audience to murder, although Hall does still get some of the funniest lines.

Both Scream and Scary Movie traditionally kick off with the masked villain known as Ghostface killing well-known actors in the opening minutes. Drew Barrymore was first to feel the knife in Scream, while Carmen Electra (who shows up briefly here) got that honor in Scary Movie. 

Spoiler ettiquette forbids me from revealing the name, but the appearance of a fast-rising star in the pre-title sequence, amusingly playing off her tough-gal persona and throwing in a war cry from the movie that earned her an Oscar nomination gives false hope that the family screenwriting posse of Marlon, Shawn, Keenen and Craig Wayans, plus Rick Alvarez, might have some fresh ideas up their sleeves. Given that the opening shocker was designed to subvert expectations it’s a clever riff to subvert the subversion.

But it’s pretty much downhill from there. Ghostface randomly pops up after all this time to plunge his knife into the ribs of Tuesday (Savannah Lee Nassif), the youngest daughter of alcoholic absentee mother Cindy, who’s been living without conditioner in a heavily fortified, booby-trapped house, a la Jamie Lee Curtis in 2018’s Halloween. Tuesday’s pillhead big sister Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) and the latter’s boyfriend Jack (Cameron Scott Roberts) call on Cindy after a lengthy estrangement to ask for her help in killing Ghostface. But no sooner does Cindy emerge from her fortress than they realize that her old nemesis is using her children to get to her.

One of Sara’s classmates at Woodsville High is Brenda’s footballer son Brad (Gregg Wayans), whose hyper-sexual girlfriend Elle (Ruby Snowber) fills the Shannon Elizabeth slot — prompting a cute callback from Brenda to her judgy skank comments from the first movie. While motherhood has helped Brenda evolve, she hasn’t quite gotten on board with the raised social consciousness disparagingly known as “wokeness.” But her cool daughter DEI (Sydney Park), who uses they/them pronouns, is always ready to correct her.

That character’s name alone — like the resurgence of Doofy — is an indication of the mirth the screenwriters take from skewering political correctness and cancel culture. If only those jokes were amusing. This kind of broad, slapstick parody needs a steady stream of laugh-out-loud moments, but the new Scary Movie generates barely a trickle.

Also back from the original movie is Cindy’s ex, Bobby (Jon Abrahams), at least in her addled mind; the erstwhile dumb jock turned sheriff Greg (Lochlyn Munro), whose trans son Jess (Benny Zielke) is part of the high school group; and TV news anchor Gail Hailstorm (Cheri Oteri), who starts chasing down the story as soon as Ghostface draws fresh blood.

The moment everyone has gotten together to figure out a plan is more or less when the story runs out of juice. Or stops being a story. Instead, it’s a string of sketches of wildly uneven quality, playing off movies that include Get Out, Longlegs, The Substance, Terrifier, Candyman, It Follows, Weapons and even Michael, courtesy of Kenan Thompson, who’s given a lousy setup but a hilarious payoff. 

Another SNL alum, Heidi Gardner, does a very sharp take on Maika Monroe’s detective from Longlegs alongside Damon Wayans Jr. as Agent Underwood (geddit?). The case they are working revolves around the creepily androgynous Shorthand (Chris Elliott), who is mostly saved for one of the belabored post-credit scenes.

A good example of the hit-or-miss joke factor is two separate scenes referencing Sinners. In the one that works, Sara, Jack and Tuesday knock on the door during a party at Brenda’s house, asking to be invited in with their white folks’ banjos and such. In the other, Ray hears the sounds of worship through the doors of an old-timey country church, and enters to commune with the preacher, declaring that he’s no longer gay while dropping gay signifiers left and right.

The throwaway lines or sight gags about Ray’s sexuality were funny in the early films because they were rarely hammered. Or if they were, like death via an erect penis through a glory hole, they were outlandish enough to work. Here, the laughs are bludgeoned to death, never more so than in the final stretch when multiple Ghostfaces converge.

Series first-timer Michael Tiddes directs competently enough, but he’s mostly on hand to line up the nonstop cameos (including actors from the post Wayans’ installments) and shout-outs to other, better movies. I laughed at a drive-by appearance from White Chicks’ Tiffany. Ditto at Brenda calling a gun-packing Cindy John Wick, then explaining, “I would have said Ballerina, but nobody saw that shit.” Often, the humor about the business of movies is funnier than the sketch comedy riffs.

Fourth walls are shattered, hoary tropes are dismantled, the body count climbs and a joke gets thrown in about the endless supply of Wayanses ready to keep the franchise going. For the first time, that includes In Living Color vet Kim Wayans, going large as irascible hospital staffer Nurse Ratchett. But how many times can we crack up with Shorty in his perennial weed cloud? This “rebootiquel,” as one of the characters refers to it, needs fresh inspiration and not just a lazy retread of the same old meta contortions if it’s to have a life much beyond its opening weekend.