New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Sometimes I enjoy seeing a mindless movie. Maybe that reasoning is why I put up $11 this past weekend to see Texas Chainsaw 3D (I regretted it along with the millions of Americans who contributed to the movie’s pole position opening). And it will also probably be my logic to see the horror spoof flick A Haunted House (hopefully something that will be worth the price of admission).

While spoof films recently have been no more than excuses to give the Kardashians “acting” roles and make as many flavor of the month pop culture references as possible, Marlon Wayans starring and co-writing gives me (slight) hope for A Haunted House. After all, he was one of the minds behind the hit horror spoof, Scary Movie.

Released in 2000, Scary Movie is more than 10 years old; yet, it still feels surprisingly current due to the fact that the spoofing is driven by gags inspired by classic scenes in the movies they are satirizing rather than cultural fads. When it comes to spoof movies, you get more satisfaction from the jokes if you are more familiar with the films it is skewering. With Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Matrix being movies watched by a majority of filmgoers nowadays, Scary Movie may be even more with us than before.

Reviewing a spoof film is quite difficult. There are no real characters, just exaggerated stereotypes. There is no real plot either, just stolen plot points from mostly the three movies I mentioned above. In fact, the original title of Scary Movie was Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween, if you want a basic idea of how many horror references the movie tries to cram in.

However, what makes Scary Movie work is its audaciously unbound humor (although that might be a reason for others to hate it) and able cast.

The best thing to come out of this film is franchise MVP Anna Faris. Brilliant, beautiful, and fantastic at playing dumb, Faris has the uncanny ability to deliver the most ridiculous lines with the utmost sincerity in addition to a gift of slapstick. Hailed as the second coming of Lucille Ball, Faris deserves an award for being the hardest working actor in Hollywood to star in some of the most lackluster films the industry has to offer.

Faris has been the shining beacon in the Scary Movie franchise, and it will be interesting to see how the fifth installment that comes out later this year turns out without her onscreen (which is good for Faris to have finally moved on).

With this film serving as her introduction to audiences, Faris more than holds her own against the more seasoned comedic cast of Marlon and Shawn Wayans. Regina Hall (another key Scary Movie player who co-starred in all four sequels outside of the upcoming installment) also caught her break in the series as the loud mouthed Brenda, who headlines one of the movie’s funniest scenes as an obnoxious moviegoer.

I would elaborate on more highlight scenes (such as a beauty competition talent portion headlined by Shannon Elizabeth (American Pie) gone hilariously wrong), but that would just spoil the laughs. Actually, I am sure at this point you have most likely seen the movie (the franchise has seemingly become a staple in Comedy Central’s network programming).

Spoof flicks have always been a steadily released genre, but after the one-two box office bonanza bunch of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Scary Movie, the number of films in this comedy subgenre hit overload and the quality was forgotten about. Soon [Insert any popular film genre name here] Movie popped up everywhere. However, quickly diminishing returns soon followed, making studios pull back on the bottom-barrel priced genre fare. Yet, the Scary Movie franchise still remained consistently high-grossing (and the best of the poor-quality flicks).

Scary Movie opened July 7, 2000 to a shockingly powerful $42.3 million ($62.4 million today) bow in only 2,912 theaters, giving the film the best R-rated opening of the year (even higher than Scream 3’s, one of the movie’s big targets). Strong holds and the addition of about another 400 theaters got the flick to reach the franchise’s watermark gross of $157 million ($231.3 million adjusted). As a fun fact, Scary Movie is Miramax’s second-highest grossing film of all time, surprising given that the now defunct studio is known for their upper echelon releases.

Budgeted at a lean $19 million, it is not shocking that Scary Movie 2 found its way into theaters exactly a year later but to only less than half of the original’s gross. Three years later, the franchise came back to life, re-worked under spoof legend David Zucker’s (Airplane!, Naked Gun) direction as a Wayans-less and PG-13 rated property, returning back to $100 million+ grosses.

With a solid franchise history, it will be fascinating to see how Scary Movie 5 will fare, especially since it is preceded this week by A Haunted House, which has a strikingly similar-looking yet more laugh-filled trailer, and ups the ante with the return of the Wayans (although how much name value they hold in today’s pop culture landscape seems like an insignificant factor).

The best option might be to just re-watch Scary Movie again. Horror villains never seem to die and most of the films it skewers still have sequels coming out of the pipeline (only last year Scream 4 hit theaters, although to much less success at reconnecting with blood-craving audiences).

Scary Movie’s string of a plot is pulled just taut enough to last the film’s 88-minute runtime without snapping. Slashing up slasher flicks with a sharp (but not smart) wit, Scary Movie offers up enough laughs to not be a horrific exercise of patience like the later spoof movies its success inspired.


Verdict: With Us
6 out of 10