Scary Movie (2000)
2000
R
88 Minutes
Following on the heels of popular teen-scream horror movies, with uproarious comedy and biting satire. Marlon and Shawn Wayans, Shannon Elizabeth and Carmen Electra pitch in to skewer some of Holly...
User Review
-
Scary Movie pretty much coined the word "wasssssup!?" and for good reason. Taking popular films from the 90s and replicating specific scenes and plots to create a spoof film sounds incredibly lazy. Surprisingly the originality comes from transforming these horror films into comedic sketches that will certainly make the originals less scary. A group of high schoolers have their past come to haunt them as a masked serial killer slashes his way through each one. Borrowing the plot of 'Scream' and entangling it with threads from 'The Usual Suspects' and 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'. Wayans attempted to include as many film references as possible, and half the fun is identifying them. "Ohhh there's 'The Matrix' 360 freeze frame!", "the classic "I see dead people" line, niceee!" and "Amistad II instead of 'Titanic'? Sure, I'm onboard". Certain imitations were hilarious such as 'The Blair Witch Project' woodland run and the cinema viewing of 'Shakespeare in Love'. It's certainly a good time when with friends, but is it actually a decent film? Well, yes and no. The horrendous overacting is humorous at first but quickly becomes tiresome as Cindy consistently screams in fear and runs away like a headless chicken. For me, a large portion of the slapstick humour and "witty" dialogue were misses. These spoof films rely on you watching the films that it is attempting to mimic, so if you haven't watched any you will not find this funny at all. At the time of this review I haven't seen 'Miss Congeniality' so the entire beauty pageant scene was wasted on me. The script relied heavily on visual comedy which mostly comprised of grotesque uninspired actions such as farting inconveniently. May have been funny in the 70s but not anymore, come on. What this flick does do is introduce us to the character Brenda who, whilst criminally underused in this, is a massive highlight in future sequels. This is, for me, my least favourite of the original trilogy. A solid watch if you are drunk with friends, but unfortunately comes across as unintelligent and unfunny for most of its runtime.0 member like this review.
