Keenen Ivory Wayans, who brought us comedies like Hollywood Shuffle and I’m Gonna Get You Sucka, brings us a different kind of comedy. Scary Movie is a parody of horror films like Scream, which is kind of ironic considering Scream was meant to be a satire of horror films as well. For Scary Movie though, the humor is as lowbrow as it gets.
Carmen Electra is the first to go in a scene right out of Scream. Thankfully, the filmmakers were smart enough to get Electra to run through a sprinkler in slow motion wearing only her underwear and getting soaking wet before she’s stabbed to death. She dies only after being stabbed in the chest (the murderer pulls out the knife with a silicone breast implant attached) and then run over by a car. So much for overkill.
Like every teen horror movie ever made, we’re introduced to a cast of characters that we could care less about and can’t wait to see get killed. At the center is Cindy, who is a virgin of course and holding out on her boyfriend Bobby. The cast of very familiar characters also includes Shawn Wayans as a butt-loving football player, Marlon Wayans as a doped out freak, Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie, Cheri Oteri as reporter Gail Hailstorm and Dave Sheridan as the retarded Officer Doofy.
In a flashback sequence these teen morons relive the night that they accidentally killed what looks like the Gorton Fisherman guy, you know, from those boxes of Fishsticks. Do you think HE may be responsible for these rash of unexplained murders? Duh?! Well, just so you know, that turns out to not be true and our teens are systematically killed one by one, in more and more bizarre ways. And some of them are even funny. But who is doing the killing? The film also contains parodies of a lot of recent films like The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project and The Matrix.
While the base level of toilet humor works well, maybe some of the time, Scary Movie does contain one of this year’s most crowd pleasing scenes when an entire audience at participates in killing a woman at a movie theater for talking too loud! Thank you Keenen!
Scary Movie’s humor is definitely in the gutter. It’s jokes of the “toilet-poo-poo-homo-butt” variety. Utimately, there are some laughs, enough to justify a video rental at least. Also, high levels of intoxication certainly will add to your enjoyment and are sure to double the laughs.