Scary Movie 6: am I too old for this s***?
Back in the day, Scary Movie felt like a sucker punch to the morality police. Today, a lot of it feels like a highly predictable checklist of off-limits jokes. The film is as brash as ever, but is it funny?
Fear not, this review contains zero spoilers. I won’t be revealing anything more than what’s already in the public domain or has been shown in trailers. Scary Movie 6 is screening in Swiss cinemas from 3 June.
Gosh, how old would I have been when I first got to watch Scary Movie on DVD? 12? 13? All I remember is how hilarious I found every single joke, no matter how stupid they were. When I watch old clips, some of them still make me laugh. I’ve got one word for you:
«Wazzuuuuuuup!»
With toilet jokes, fart jokes and sex jokes, the film didn’t just parody Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer and the zeitgeist – it also deliberately flouted notions of good taste, earning tuts of disapproval from prim-and-proper viewers. As a young teenager, I obviously thought that was great. Brilliantly rebellious.
But today? Well, I’m not a teenager anymore. And I’m afraid the Wayans brothers, the creators of Scary Movie, aren’t either.
The Wayans are back for more
To recap: Keenen Ivory Wayans directed the first Scary Movie, while his brothers Shawn and Marlon wrote the screenplay and played the lead roles. The film cost 19 million dollars to make, grossed 278 million dollars and sparked a massive wave of poorly produced parodies. Although the Wayans brothers stepped back from the franchise amid a dispute with Miramax after Scary Movie 2, the studio carried on regardless.
What happened after that is the truly juicy part of the story. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were two writers who – thanks to a WGA ruling – were credited as two of the six writers of the original film, despite having had no part in the final script. A credit they subsequently shamelessly used to market their own films. Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie were all advertised with the tagline «From two of the six writers of Scary Movie!» All of the films were abysmal, all riding on a reputation they didn’t deserve.
The genre suffered from this for years.
Now, the Wayans are back – and the gloves are off. There’s a whiff of Eminem to it all; in 2002, the rapper sang about how «empty» the world would feel without him and his constant controversies. As if we don’t have enough controversy as it is. The song choice for the trailer is so in-your-face that it’s tacky.
But hey. Scary Movie 6 is here and it pulls no punches, featuring cancel culture, political correctness, racism and gay jokes. In other words, all the stuff that gets people worked up these days. And the film is desperate to show us just how bold and edgy it is. That it’s dared to make jokes that others are too afraid to make right now. Now, that’d certainly be a legitimate ambition. It worked back in 2000, didn’t it? Today, however, none of it feels bold to me. It just feels … tiresome.
The premise of the film is actually pretty clever. Ghostface is back, targeting the original characters – Cindy Campbell, Brenda Meeks and every other Scary Movie OG. The figure behind the mask this time – and their motive – give the film a distinctly autobiographical note. If you’re familiar with the franchise’s backstory, you’ll find yourself smirking once the credits roll. The concept is good. It’s the execution that’s the problem.
Or is it me?
Am I the problem?
I’m genuinely asking myself that question. Maybe I’ve since joined the same class of hoity-toity gatekeepers of respectability that Scary Movie poked fun at back in the day. I’ve watched too many films, written too many reviews, analysed too many jokes. Maybe there’s a price to pay for all of that. Maybe I’m unable to just laugh without also scrutinising why I’m laughing. Or why I’m not. That habit makes everything less funny as it is.
Then, just before the press screening, I sat down for an interview with Shawn Wayans and Anna Faris – a gloriously chaotic conversation that showed me just how earnestly they approached this project. How sincere they really are about it. Faris, who for years felt that Hollywood didn’t take Scary Movie seriously. Wayans, who spoke with genuine bitterness about how he and his brothers were left out in the cold while others ran the genre into the ground.
And I believe them. I believe they mean well. But in spite of that – or perhaps precisely because of it – I’m sorry to say that Scary Movie 6 doesn’t really do it for me.
So how do you explain The Naked Gun? Last year, Seth MacFarlane’s reboot, starring Liam Neeson, did a wonderful job of demonstrating how to bring a 1980s parody into the present day. It was knee-slappingly funny, but never cringeworthy.
In one scene, Frank Drebin Jr., the detective, is searching for a suspect in a bar. The bartender refuses to help because, in the name of justice, Frank shot his brother. Frank can’t remember him among the literally thousands of people he’s shot. The bartender says his brother was shot in the back as he was running away. Frank points out that leaves hundreds at least. «Unarmed.» That leaves at least fifty.
«He was white.»
Finally, Frank slaps his palm down on the counter with a broad grin.
«So you’re Tony Roiland’s brother!»
The joke pokes fun at racist police violence without needing to explain how, and it made me laugh my head off. That’s successful humour.
Bold or brash?
In Scary Movie 6, Ray – played by Shawn Wayans, who co-wrote the first film’s screenplay – visits a church congregation resembling the one in Sinners. He steps up to the pulpit and proudly announces that he’s been cured of the «sickness» of being gay. He says he’s no longer tempted by the likes of beautiful muscles, oiled-up, washboard abs or long, hard, thick ... you get the picture.
As Ray’s gurgling away, gesturing wildly in front of his face, sucking on imaginary «lollipops», he inadvertently shows that he’s anything but «cured» – and the congregation is, of course, outraged.
The trailer did promise that «every line» would be «crossed». Even so, I never expected it to feel so contrived. It’s as if someone was has just gone through a list of off-limits topics and simply ticked them off for the sake of it.
Source: Paramount Pictures
In my opinion, good comedy doesn’t need a victim to lampoon. It needs to make an observation. In other words, instead of taking potshots at marginalised groups – gay people, people of colour, women – it targets the absurdity, the double standards and the system that oppresses them.
The difference between those approaches is subtle, but it’s paramount.
«I’m the son of a mother – and some of my best friends are Jewish.» Barbie deploys the same technique as The Naked Gun. The joke targets double standards, not the group itself. And it doesn’t require explanation to be understood.
The Naked Gun’s joke about Frank Drebin Jr. and the bartender works, not because it makes fun of racism, but because it, in tandem with the audience, highlights the absurd logic behind racist police violence. The joke takes a kick at the perpetrator, not the victim. And it trusts the audience to come to this realisation themselves, without needing an explanation.
Source: Paramount Pictures
Scary Movie 6, on the other hand, never puts any trust in the viewer. The Ray scene is an attempt to poke fun at homophobia and religious zealotry. I think it is, anyway. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t target the church that deems gay people to be sick. Instead, it targets Ray himself – his homosexuality, his lust and his lack of self-control. The congregation’s feathers are ruffled, of course. But the joke prompts the viewer to laugh at Ray, not with him. That’s the key distinction. In the end, it’s not the system that’s the target, it’s the gay man who’s unable to control himself …
The rest of the film ricochets from one tiresomely boisterous scene to another. Apart from one bit that takes a genuinely good jab at live streams. As for the rest, the Wayans brothers seem to have forgotten why their jokes in Scary Movie 1 and 2, although often pushing the boundaries of good taste, actually landed. Not all of them, mind you. But certainly some of them.
Some even to this day.
In a nutshell
I *am* too old for this s***
The first Scary Movie never set out to prove how gutsy it was. It just went about the business of being gutsy. Lowbrow, loud and ridiculous, its jokes landed with a precision that nobody believed it’d be capable of. And that’s exactly what made it an unexpected smash hit.
Scary Movie 6, on the other hand, is trying to prove its boldness. To prove that it’s still young, loud and full of energy. But that’s precisely the problem. I can feel how hard the Wayans brothers – now in their 50s – are trying. I can feel how much the film wants me to think that it’s brave. How desperately it’s hoping that I’m still the teenager I used to be.
The thing is, I’m not. And unfortunately, the Wayans aren’t either.
I write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.
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