Review of Scary Movie (2000) by Avi S — 13 Jul 2014

Historically speaking, the spoof movie is one of the easiest genres to make but one of the hardest to pull off successfully, Director Keenen Ivory Wayans did it once before with the terrific "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka", but he doesn't fare as well with his "Scream" send-up "Scary Movie".

Admittedly some of the jokes do work, but that's bound to happen when you have a screenplay that is as crowded with jokes as this one is. It's only natural that you'll laugh a few times. The problem is that Wayans takes the easy way out and goes with lowbrow, crowd-pleasing comedy like gay jokes and drug humor to pad out this virtual clone of the Wes Craven hit.

The only good thing about following the movie that inspired it so closely is that at least you can say there's a plot, which puts it head and shoulders above the dismal spoof movies that would follow from writer/directors Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg. It may be interesting to note that they were two of the six (count 'em, six) writers credited for coming up with this. You have to wonder with that many minds at work why this film is the best that they could come up with, especially since it's a no-brainer that the horror genre is so easy to spoof.

Anna Faris, in her big-screen debut, is clearly better than this material, but since it became a hit she was locked into appearing in three more sequels. There's hardly anything fresh about "Scary Movie", and it certainly doesn't break any new ground. It simply had the good fortune to be slightly better that a lot of the dreck that followed it, including its own sequels.