Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lindsay Traves | Film | June 6, 2026
The year 2000 was a wild time. Millennials were just trying to vibe out to ska, cell phone ring tones cost $1.99, and we were all experiencing the relief of not succumbing to the Y2K bug. 1999 saw mainstream audiences devouring The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix, iconic Super Bowl beer commercials, and an Austin Powers sequel in the same year as a Bond movie. That is to say, Scary Movie didn’t invent the parody mega genre, but it certainly popularized the collections of multi-movie gags targeting things relevant to young audiences, and spawned a phenomenon.
The Wayans brothers are all over that film (and some of the sequels), Keenen Ivory directing the first and the others starring and acting as a part of the writing team. Borrowing the original title for Scream, Scary Movie built itself around the 1996 horror titan and took down everyone else as it went. Some sequels later, a whole lot of horror history, and the Scream movies tackling reboot-quels, the brothers have returned (this time with Michael Tidddes directing) with their latest lampoon taking on the … fifth of seven Scream installments.
It makes sense they’d wrap their newest flick in the fifth Scream as that movie tried to pluck meta-commentary from the idea of rebooting the franchise with a younger cast still tied to the original. Brenda (Regina Hall), Shorty (Marlon Wayans), Ray (Shawn Wayans) and Cindy (Anna Faris) are all back (along with some others) and some of them have kids. Cindy is now a recluse care of Laurie Strode, but she is called back into action when her daughter, Tuesday (not Wednesday, but maybe Tara Carpenter) is attacked by a killer in a Ghostface mask. Banding together with the Meeks kids, the families try to figure out just who the killer cares about: the kids or the originals. And even though it all makes perfect sense - and if we’re honest, does a better job satirizing the reboot-quel than the movie it’s parodying - Scary Movie feels a bit too late to its own party, lost in jokes about COVID, Ma, and a franchise that no longer even has the same main cast.
Of course, it’s all wrapped up in the same comedy as the movies of yore. There were times I found myself muttering “that’s funny,” more than I was laughing, then being blindsided by a delivery from Damon Wayans Jr. that knocked me off my seat. It’s tempting to be cynical that these movies don’t seem to have evolved at all, but there is something warm about the millennial embrace of “waaaaasssapppp” and “shit son!” from an old friend. In a time where we’ve been asked to take so many things so seriously, it’s nice to just be grossed out by Chris Elliot in Longlegs, ahem, Shorthand makeup.
It was already a challenge for the latest Scream movies to out-meta themselves, and that leaves Scary Movie in an even stranger position trying to do the same to a meta-movie. It’s rote and tired when trying to make greater comments on reboot-quels and horror structure, but the dumb humor has still got it, and the pitting Gen Z/ Alpha against millennials is actually kind of effective. There’s no “anti-woke”ness to be found, instead a wink at everyone that makes aging douchebags the butts of the joke before eventually saying “f*** them kids.”
The “Scary Movie” of it all is ultimately window dressing elevated by Dave Sheridan’s Ghostface voice, but Scary Movie lives or gets stabbed to death by its throwback jokes and the return of its beloved cast.
Scary Movie hits theaters June 5, 2026
