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Way to Prep #2: Scary Movie (2000)

Once the horror genre’s blood started pumping again after Scream, Williamson would use the same witty-horror formula to make the similarly successful I Know What You Did Last Summer. That then led to the Final Destination series, some Urban Legend movies, and a whole new sub-genre was born and boring before you knew it. Scream was there to save the day when slashers became redundant, and Scary Movie was right behind it to usher in another era of the mock-movie. This genre comes and goes every few years. Leslie Nielsen mocked a whole bunch of movies in the 90’s but it wasn’t a genre back then so much as a one-man firing squad. After Scary Movie, every genre ever would get mocked and it’s all thanks to this faux-fright flick.

Even though Scary Movie targets a whole genre, the base plot mirrors Scream almost exactly. The Wayans Brothers, comedy legends in their own right, blaze their way through writing, directing and starring in the films that shoot each Scream scene full of steroids with sight gag after dumb blonde after small penis joke. The laughs are consistent and often gut-busting with special props going to Anna Faris. It was her first big movie and it launched quite a career. She would go on to star in four of the five Scary Movies, all of which were successful despite the attempts of their less successful competition (Epic Movie, Superhero Movie, Date Movie, etc.)

Way to Prep #3: Jason X (2002)

If you can’t reinvent a genre or make fun of one, you can always make fun of yourself. Even though slasher films had died a gruesome death after the 80’s ended, that wouldn’t be enough to stop the immortal terror of Jason Voorhees. Even though it looks as though I’m suggesting Jason didn’t get a makeover until after the success of Scream, that couldn’t be further from the truth. No slasher franchise has had more makeovers than Mr. Voorhees. Heck, he wasn’t even the killer in Part 1! That honor belongs to his mother. Jason didn’t take over the machete until Part 2; he didn’t get his iconic mask until Part 3; Part 6 or 7 had something to do with telekinesis; Part 8 took Jason away from Camp Crystal Lake and into the dark, dangerous world of New York City; and then another studio took over and Part 9 had something to do with Jason’s heart being a creature and possession or something, then the franchise died again.

That was until cheap special effects and comedic-horror became new norms.. Jason had been to hell and back almost a dozen times but he has never been to space. Naturally, this is where he went and we are all the luckier for it. Jason has always been scary because he is a physically deformed immortal with an irrational penchant for revenge (a few campers make a mistake and he drowns, his mother slaughters a bunch of camp counselors, one girl kills his mom and suddenly we have ten films and hundreds of victims). As scary as it is, it’s stops being creative after nine movies. There are only so many ways to kill with a knife or axe. In space, you have scientific labs, futuristic technology, changes to gravity and about a million new ways to slaughter the innocent. It may not be the best movie or the scariest, but it is one of the more creative attempts at low-budget, sci-fi, comedy-horror. You’ll definitely smile more than you scream and you’ll learn that sometimes the funniest joke is the one you tell about yourself.

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