Scary Movie (2026)

The Wayans Return, But the Jokes Don't

While satirical movies have shown promise under the Lonely Island troupe of Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, with the likes of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), and The Naked Gun (2025), the genre hasn't really been revitalized. At least not to the level kickstarted in the early 2000s by Scary Movie (2000), which both generated the boom and brought about its own demise with its increasingly turgid sequels. Yet despite a thirteen-year gap since Scary Movie 5 (2013), the franchise has been brought back, with the original creative team of the Wayans on board, in the confusingly titled Scary Movie (2026).

Scary Movie's confusing title pokes fun at the fact that some horror sequels are now titled the same as the first film while being a further entry, such as Scream (2022) and Halloween (2018). Just as with the 2000 original, this newest entry uses the structure of the 2022 Scream entry as its basis to spoof the current horror genre. We get returning characters from the franchise, such as paranoid protagonist Cindy (Anna Faris), her best friend Brenda (Regina King), and the returning brothers, weed-obsessed Shorty (Marlon Wayans) and queer-curious Ray (Shawn Wayans).

While Scary Movie starts off as a direct spoof, closely following the Scream sequel and taking advantage of the legacy-sequel craze that has taken over many horror franchises, after the first act it gets sidetracked and unspools. The problem with any satire, especially one that aims to be meta, is that it's hard to maintain a consistent narrative and character arcs that viewers can take seriously while also poking fun at it all. It isn't impossible, however, as The Naked Gun made clear last summer. That Liam Neeson-led film was a rapid-fire series of jokes and asides that nevertheless followed a throughline and maintained character consistency.

With this Scary Movie, as with the later sequels that preceded it, the main flaw is the gradual loss of focus on that consistency. The entire second act feels like a mashup of parody skits of recent horror hits, be it The Substance (2024), Terrifier 3 (2024), or Longlegs (2024), that lead nowhere and would leave the story exactly the same if they were cut out. The result is a film that, while starting promisingly, feels more like a compilation of crammed-in Wayans sketches, trying to get laughs less from joke construction than from how many references they can include.

That's not to say there aren't laughs in the film; I certainly cracked a cackle a few times in the theater. However, the joke-to-laugh ratio is incredibly low, as most of the gimmicks fall flat or are outright boring. Mercifully, there aren't too many running gags that drag on forever and simply make you cringe, the way the spawned spoofs of Epic Movie (2007) or Superhero Movie (2008) devolved. Yet the humor gets increasingly crass and lazier, so that the best reaction it starts to generate is a single raised eyebrow at a punchline.

It was sweet to see the original cast largely back together (Elizabeth Ashley is one of the few not to return), yet they are somewhat sidelined, as the film suffers from what many other legacy sequels do: overstuffing itself with a near-identical younger generation meant to mirror the older actors from the first films. This is the case with Olivia Rose Keegan and Savannah Lee Nassif, who play Cindy's daughters. The result is that every character feels like a cameo rather than getting much time to shine. Faris in particular isn't able to delve into the physical comedy that was so prevalent in her character in previous entries.

In the end, Scary Movie is a disappointing reunion of the original cast and creative team, offering little commentary on the horror genre of today and instead largely going through the motions, approaching the lesser sequels of its series in their lack of memorability and humor. This is largely due to an increasing lack of structure, continuity, or any common thread, which grinds the pace to a halt. There are a few good laughs here, but certainly not enough to merit sitting through the entire runtime. The franchise had been shelved for a reason, and sadly this new entry doesn't make the case for restarting a series that frankly doesn't have much to say or laugh at.

3.7/10