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The original working title of this film was 'Scream If You
Know What I Did Last Halloween'. Instead, the Wayans brothers
chose to go with the title Scary Movie (which was in fact the
original name of the movie Scream). A more appropriate title
would have been 'Silly Movie' because although there are some
funny moments, this is mostly juvenile and unoriginal.
The plot of this film, for what its worth, is a mix of Scream
and I Know What You Did Last Summer with a bunch of stereotyped
college kids being stalked by a Munch mask wearing killer a
year after they ran over a pedestrian and dumped his body. Cindy
(Anna Faris) is the virginal Neve Campbell / Jennifer Love Hewitt
/ Katie Holmes copy, Bobby (Jon Abrahams) is her sexually fustrated
boyfriend, Buffy (Shannon Elizabeth) is the stuck up beauty
queen, while Doofy (Dave Sheridan) is a dim witted police cadet.
All this is really just a backdrop for non stop skit length
gags which include parodies of such diverse sources as The Blair
Witch Project, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects,
and the Budweiser ads. While some of these jokes hit the mark
(especially a cutting swipe at the morals of Dawsons Creek),
most of them just seem awkward and forced. The worst ones are
simply terrible (such as the very masculine female gym instructor).
While I have nothing against gross out bad taste jokes, it is
only any good if they are funny and unfortunately in Scary Movie
they are not.
One of the problems with Scary Movie is that the main movie
that it parodies (Scream) was in itself a spoof. Great spoofs
like Flying High (Airplane!) and the Naked Gun were effective
because they took off the silly but incredibly serious disaster
and detective movies of that era. In effect they work because
they poke fun at the very seriousness of the movies themselves.
Teen horrors of recent times have already become tongue in cheek,
so this means you have to do something pretty special to make
a spoof of this genre work well.
If you like bad taste American humour and are not easily offended
by politically incorrect jokes then you will like this film.
Just don't expect anything too clever.
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