PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Parody movies can go either way in the cinematic world. Sometimes, they become all time classics, such as The Naked Gun (1988) and Austin Powers (1997), and other times, they can be some of the biggest turds to ever hit screens such as The 41 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall And Felt Superbad About It (2010) and Disaster Movie (2008).
The important thing to notice in the offensively bad parodies just listed is the dates. They both came out in the 21st century. It seems that every parody that comes down the pipe these days tries too hard to be funny, and it ends up not being funny at all.
Thank goodness for Marlon and Shawn Wayans. Back in 2000, Shawn and Marlon Wayans decided to do a parody movie of two of the most iconic horror franchises at the time, Scream (1996) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997 – read our retro review here). Directed by their brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Scary Movie hit the screens in July 7, 2000.
The plot is pretty much a combination of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer with funny re-creations of popular scenes. What made this parody movie work are the jokes, which were legitimately funny, and the actors, who did a great job with what they were given.
Almost the entire cast has played serious roles in the past and since, such as Marlon Wayans in Requiem For A Dream (2000), Kurt Fuller in No Holds Barred (1989), Lochlyn Munro in Freddy Vs Jason (2003), Anna Faris in Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Shannon Elizabeth in Jack Frost (1997). This was a chance for all of them to ham it up. Most of the character names are direct spoofs of both the characters from the parodied horror movies and the actors and actresses who played them: Anna plays Cindy Campbell, and Shannon Elizabeth plays Buffy Gilmore.
The bread and butter of the movie is the Wayans brothers’ homage to the original films by making sure the jokes in Scary Movie were funny enough to keep the audience going for almost 90 minutes.
*On a personal note, you should have seen how hard I laughed in the theater when the homeless man, played by Lloyd Berry (April Fool’s Day 1986 – read our retro review here), throws a sandwich at Cindy and calls her a “dumb bitch.” *
Now, what kind of humor are we dealing with here? The comedy is standard Wayans brothers material, such as smoking weed, fart jokes, random drop-ins, gay and straight sex jokes. The opening scene has singer Carmen Electra as Drew run through the sprinkler system in her underwear. The Killer (Dave Sheridan: MTV’s Buzzkill 1996) stabs her in the chest and digs out her breast implant. He pokes it and says, “Ewww…” which caused my, at the time, 50-year-old father to roar laughing.
Many scenes in Scary Movie are just as iconic as anything in Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, such as Buffy’s demise where she rambles on and on, Miss Mann (bodybuilder Jane Trcka) or Garage Victim (Big Brother’s Marissa Jaret Winokur) getting caught in the garage’s doggie door.
It wasn’t only horror movies that got parodied. The brothers actually incorporated their own version of the popular Budweiser “Wazup?” commercial as well as one of the funniest rap freestyles in recorded history. Basically, the original Scary Movie is a time capsule of the late ’90s preserved forever in an eighty-eight minute dose.
The good news is that Scary Movie was a smash success. It grossed $278 million on a $19 million budget and was the new millennium’s answer to great parody movies such as Airplane (1980) and Hot Shots (1988). The bad news is the flood of parody movies that came out after this one pretty much flopped. The Wayans went to the well one too many times in a short frame of time for the film’s sequels. Craig Moss parodying the Seth Rogan and crew movies bombed, and Jason Friedberg’s Disaster Movie is literally the #1 WORST ranked movie on IMDb.
It is a blessing and a curse that Scary Movie did so well, because other writers and directors thought they could cash in on the concept. Scary Movie 2 came out just one year later and featured the exact same actors playing the exact same characters with a few exceptions. Released too soon after Scary Movie, it didn’t do as well in theaters, although it still has its funny moments here or there. The sequels also tried to branch out into non-horror movies with Scary Movie 4 (2006) recreating the rap battle scene from 8 Mile (2003), among other things. The fact that the Wayans brothers crapped out four movies in six years in the same style flooded the market.
Still, in an era of terrible parody movies, the original Scary Movie still stands up as long as you think gay jokes and toilet humor is funny. So what’s Ghostface doing these days 20 years after Scary Movie came out? He’s probably chillin’… killin’…
