It's genuinely great that they took the development title from Scream for their use here.
Scary Movie is a parody of popular nineties/early-aughts horror movies, ushering in the second (and kind of the last) wave of parody cinema following the boom in the seventies. And it's...real mixed. And ages worse than many seventies films, unfortunately.
The film is primarily a mix of the Scream films released up to that point, with heavy elements of I Know What You Did Last Summer, so it's all teen-slasher content. The jokes have a broad range, with some instances of insightful social commentary, and plenty of genuinely hilarious absurdist parody that turns the wry Scream into a Looney Tunes production...but the self-aware Scream kind of didn't need a parody and there's also gratuitously foul humor that seeks laughs from grotesque explicit imagery, and plenty of comedy that simply punches down and mocks vulnerable groups. Graphic statements and imagery feature just to be shocking. One character is deliberately made to be an ableist caricature of someone with developmental disabilities. A trans woman is made out to be creepy and repulsive. The film feels very datedly "2000s", and for me, that's more for its distasteful and shallow "edgy" humor than its style. The film simply takes for granted that I'll find more of it funny than I do.
Comedy doesn't have to have soul or really much art to it for a comedy production to be great. But I feel like the great gags in the movie are outweighed in my mind by all the attempts at comedy that felt embarrassingly immature and cruel. It's a strong snapshot of the pop culture and attitudes of the time, but it doesn't hold up to me even as a cheap popcorn movie.
Film Often funny, but lowbrow with low blows.
It's genuinely great that they took the development title from Scream for their use here.
Scary Movie is a parody of popular nineties/early-aughts horror movies, ushering in the second (and kind of the last) wave of parody cinema following the boom in the seventies. And it's...real mixed. And ages worse than many seventies films, unfortunately.
The film is primarily a mix of the Scream films released up to that point, with heavy elements of I Know What You Did Last Summer, so it's all teen-slasher content. The jokes have a broad range, with some instances of insightful social commentary, and plenty of genuinely hilarious absurdist parody that turns the wry Scream into a Looney Tunes production...but the self-aware Scream kind of didn't need a parody and there's also gratuitously foul humor that seeks laughs from grotesque explicit imagery, and plenty of comedy that simply punches down and mocks vulnerable groups. Graphic statements and imagery feature just to be shocking. One character is deliberately made to be an ableist caricature of someone with developmental disabilities. A trans woman is made out to be creepy and repulsive. The film feels very datedly "2000s", and for me, that's more for its distasteful and shallow "edgy" humor than its style. The film simply takes for granted that I'll find more of it funny than I do.
Comedy doesn't have to have soul or really much art to it for a comedy production to be great. But I feel like the great gags in the movie are outweighed in my mind by all the attempts at comedy that felt embarrassingly immature and cruel. It's a strong snapshot of the pop culture and attitudes of the time, but it doesn't hold up to me even as a cheap popcorn movie.