It's A Perfect Time For The Wayans Brothers To Return To 'Scary Movie'

Horror movies are more successful than ever. Part of that success is thanks to the box office. Few things are as assured to succeed in theaters as horror is. You can take a small budget, some good scares, and swim in that profit like Scrooge McDuck. There is more to movies than making money, but making money helps get movies made.

Thanks to their (mostly) guaranteed success, horror film production is ramping up. Not just small-budget affairs, either! Franchises have as much of a hold over horror films as any other genre. We’ve seen some horror franchises dusted off again and again. Sometimes it works! Sometimes it doesn’t.

Regardless of success, most horror movies take themselves pretty seriously. There are plenty of horror comedies but that is a very specific subgenre. Horror movies need to be taken seriously if they are going to scare you. You need to feel the threat and that starts by not f***ing around. Unfortunately, some can overdo it.

“Elevated horror” isn’t my favorite term. While I’m happy that people have grown more okay with calling horror by its name when it’s good, it still feels like a reductive shorthand. Regardless, these “elevated” horror films are often the ones that take things a bit too seriously. They’ve been allowed to take hold of the industry for more than a decade, and the Wayans Brothers are back to cut them down to size.

Marlon, Shawn, and Keenen Wayans are reuniting for their first Scary Movie film in 18 years. The Scary Movie films (a franchise in their own right) skewer horror films. Keenen wrote and directed the first two films, while Shawn and Marlon starred in them and wrote as well. While we don’t yet know what movies they will parody in the new film, they will have plenty of material to work with.

The first two Scary Movie films took plenty of shots at the Scream franchise. Not only have there been several new Scream films in the 18 years since the Wayans made a Scary Movie, but two were quite recent and another may end up releasing the same year as this new Scary Movie. It feels safe to say that Ghostface will be joining the Wayans brothers in their return.