Written by Shawn Wayans And Marlon Wayans And Buddy Johnson And Phil Beauman And Jason Friedberg And Aaron Seltzer
Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans
Cindy: "You guys are psychos! You've watched too many TV shows!"
Ray: "No! Watching TV shows doesn't create psycho killers. Canceling TV shows does! I mean The Wayans Brothers was a good show, man! It was a good show, but we've never even got a final episode!"
Now for something different. With the sixth movie in this horror spoof franchise currently in production, it was time for me to go back and review the first movie. I can't believe it's been over twenty five years since this franchise debuted.
Taking both Scream (1996) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) as the bones of this story, you've got a group of mostly horrible people trying to cover an accidental death and being picked off one by one. The killer? It's Ghostface actually.
The people in question are three high school couples - Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) and her boyfriend, Bobby Prinze (Jon Abrahams), Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) and Ray Wilkins (Shawn Wayans) and Buffy Gilmore (Shannon Elizabeth) and Greg Philippe (Lochlyn Munro). They killed someone and tried to cover their tracks. Except Ghostface had other ideas on that matter.
As the movie progressed we had Buffy winning a beauty pageant while Greg was getting ridiculed on the size of his manhood. They're the two weakest characters in this first movie. There's also the permanently stoned Shorty (Marlon Wayans). I think the character's a fan favourite but he's more of a mixed bag for me.
On to the two fan favourites, it's obviously Cindy and Brenda. Anna Faris and Regina Hall are as much the glue to this franchise as the Wayans are. Cindy's the goofier version of every final girl ever but Brenda's on another level. The majority of the best lines and funniest scenes are usually from her. Whether it's her falseness towards Buffy, that sex scene with Ray or her "death" that was a homage to Scream 2, she's one of the best comic characters in this subgenre.
Getting to the Ghostface side of things. Well, didn't we all think that Billy Loomis and Stu Macher were secretly a couple? The Wayans clearly did because that's what we got with Bobby and Ray. I'll admit some of the gay jokes have not aged well but I did laugh at the time. However the twist of Officer Doofy (Dave Sheridan) and Gail Hailstorm (Cheri Oteri) being the actual killers kind of undermined them a bit.
- Other things that got spoofed included Halloween (1978), The Shining, Friday The 13th (1980), The Blaire Witch Project and The Matrix to name a few. Brenda also watched Shakespeare In Love during her "death" scene.
- There's a horribly misjudged and transphobic joke with the character, Miss Mann (Jayne Trcka). There's no way in hell the Wayans would get away with that type of character these days.
- Standout music: The Ramones I Wanna Be Sedated.
- Chronology: The film opened during Halloween with Drew Decker (Carmen Electra) being the first Ghostface victim.
Scary Movie certainly has scenes in it that have not aged well and it'll be a miracle if the upcoming sixth movie can land with a modern audience. Saying that, it's mostly a very funny first outing in this franchise.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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