Scary Movie

★☆☆☆

Scary Movie (2026)

Runtime: 96 minutes

MPAA: Rated R for crude sexual content, graphic nudity, strong violence, and drug content and language throughout.

There's a scene about halfway into the newest Scary Movie, directed by Michael Tiddes, where a character says, "it's like a reboot in a sequel, mixing legacy characters with new characters, in an attempt to feed into bullshit nostalgia and bring more fans to the theaters." That couldn't be a more apt description for the movie as a whole.

With the Wayans brothers back in control, Scary Movie reunites Marlon, Shawn, Anna Faris and Regina Hall in a supposedly self-aware parody that references newer films while updating it with modern political and social topics. I say supposed, because they throw in all the ingredients and basically do nothing with it. As usual, it's crude and ridiculous, filled to the brim with pop culture, yet it's never funny nor has any sort of payoff. One doesn't expect this much from a movie like this, but from a narrative standpoint, it's essentially an overly populated, convoluted and incoherent mess as it takes huge detours to specifically focus on shoddily recreating moments from other films for zero meaningful purpose, before it spirals out of control and implodes, revealing itself to be a meta-playful banter that mirrors what happened in the real production of the films, arguably its biggest and only strength.

A tiny subversion sees us watching a spoof within a spoof, as teenager Tuesday Campbell (Savannah Lee Nassif) wraps up watching the in-universe spoof Horror Movie, subsequently being attacked by Ghostface. Tuesday's sister Sara (Olivia Rose Keegan) and her boyfriend Jack Kirsch (Cameron Scott Roberts) learn about this, suspecting that the killer is Doofy Gilmore (Dave Sheridan). They visit Sara's estranged mother Cindy (Farris) in a Final Destination: Bloodlines recreation as we see how she's become paranoid and recluse. Tuesday's high school friends Brad (Gregg Wayans) and Dei (Sydney Park) learn about the attack, and are conveniently Brenda's (Hall) children. Joining the supporting cast are Lochlyn Munro,  Cheri Oteri, Ruby Snowber and Benny Zielke. This culminates in a reunion of the original characters, where everything kicks in motion.

So, I'll attempt to list down as many references as I remember. Scream. Longlegs. The Substance. Weapons. M3GAN. Final Destination. KPop Demon Hunters. Michael. A bunch of nods to other franchises on a train like Halloween, Heart Eyes, Texas Chain Saw Massacre. With the exception of the train sequence and Scream - since the plot (if you call it that) revolves around discovering who Ghostface is and stopping the killings - there are individual scenes dedicated to these, which are overly gross or obscene in ways that aren't even funny. In one scene where Shorty dreams of something bizarre involving KPop Demon Hunters, I was just plain disgusted. And not to mention, despite everything else having no thematic, narrative, comedic or even any significance, it's updated with Gen Z humour, race, LGBTQ and gender topics, all of which were added for the sake of adding it. At a certain point when the Wayans were livestreaming with Ghostface and immersed in their crazy antics, I wondered to myself, what was even happening?

There's basically nonexistent progression in the mystery, and it also juggles way too many characters in its infinite aimless subplots that wastes the talent of its cast. Ghostface is frequently knocked out or joins them in the madness. Why not unmask the killer? As it devolves into more madness, a sudden late twist basically makes zero sense, suffering from the lack of build-up. If that wasn't enough, it basically twists more and more, until it derails so severely that you'd be scratching your head wondering whether this was the same movie you started with. Without spoiling, the climax becomes a meta-commentary, as if they filmed the behind-the-scenes and used it in the final product instead. It's cheeky, self-aware and when it focuses on this quality, there are about 2-3 laughs to be had. Despite contradicting itself in how it ultimately handles the new cast, ending it on a parodical note is its highest point. The single star in this review is for the ending when they realised what went wrong in this, and decided to comment on what actually happened in real-life.

If by any chance you'd want to watch this, kindly go on streaming and skip all the way to the end where the reveal happens. Or even better, just watch any film it references other than this. Thank you.