Scary Movie (2000)
There is a very specific, unapologetically loud energy to the comedy of the early 2000s, and Keenen Ivory Wayans's Scary Movie kicks the door off its hinges right from the opening frames. It is crass, it is relentless, and it has absolutely no interest in your good taste. And honestly? Good.
Going back to this one now, it would be easy to dismiss it as a relic of Y2K excess, a greatest hits of bodily fluids and juvenile gags that the internet has since picked apart and put back together a thousand times over. But if you actually sit with it, there is something sharper going on underneath all the noise. The film genuinely understands the mechanics of the late-90s slasher boom it is sending up. It is not just lobbing random jokes at the screen and hoping something sticks. It gets why those horror films work, what makes the tension tick, and then it takes an absolute sledgehammer to all of it. There is a difference between a parody that mocks something and one that actually gets it, and Scary Movie is firmly in the second camp, even when it is being spectacularly stupid.
Anna Faris is a big reason it holds together as well as it does. Her breakout turn as the hapless final girl is a cracking blend of wide-eyed terror and bone-dry deadpan, and she commits to every single bit with a fearlessness that a lot of more "serious" comic performers could learn from. Shawn and Marlon Wayans bring a manic, hyperactive energy to their supporting roles that keeps things perpetually off-balance in the best possible way. The whole cast seems to be operating on the same wavelength, which gives the chaos a kind of controlled looseness that is harder to pull off than it looks.
The narrative is, to be charitable, a bit of a mess. But the sheer commitment to the joke carries you through. And what really cements the whole vibe is the soundtrack, pumping out the late-90s and early-00s pop and rap tracks that pin the film to its exact cultural moment like a butterfly in a display case. It is a time capsule, and a bracingly accurate one at that.
I would not dare call this great filmmaking by any traditional measure. The humour is about as subtle as a brick to the face, and there are gags that sail well past edgy into territory that feels genuinely dated. But here is the thing: it completely spawned an entire genre of parody films that followed in its wake, for better or, more often, for considerably worse. The imitators almost never captured the same magic, which tells you something. There was a real instinct for comedy here, buried under all the noise.
Three stars.
It asks absolutely nothing of you except to sit back and endure the silliness, and it rewards that good faith with enough genuine laugh-out-loud moments to justify the runtime. I genuinely challenge you to get through it without cracking a smile at least once. Wayans delivered a wildly entertaining, unpretentious spoof that perfectly captured the mood of its era, and sometimes that is more than enough.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2000 | Watched: 2026-07-20
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Watch in the US
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