Scary Movie

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This article is about the spoof horror film. For the genre, see horror film. For the film franchise, see Scary Movie (film series).
Scary Movie
Movie poster for "Scary Movie".jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans
Produced by Eric L. Gold
Lee R. Mayes
Written by Shawn Wayans
Marlon Wayans
Buddy Johnson
Phil Beauman
Jason Friedberg
Aaron Seltzer
Starring Anna Faris
Regina Hall
Marlon Wayans
Shawn Wayans
Shannon Elizabeth
Jon Abrahams
Kurt Fuller
Carmen Electra
Lochlyn Munro
Cheri Oteri
Dave Sheridan
Music by David Kitay
Cinematography Francis Kenny
Editing by Mark Helfrich
Studio Wayans Bros. Entertainment
Gold/Miller Productions
Brad Grey Pictures
Distributed by Dimension Films
Release date(s) July 7, 2000
Running time 87 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $19 million
Box office $278,019,771

Scary Movie is a 2000 horror comedy spoof film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans.It was intended to be released with the Title Slasher 911. It is an American dark comedy which heavily parodies the horror, slasher, and mystery genres. Several mid- and late-90s films and TV shows are spoofed, most predominantly Scream, along with I Know What You Did Last Summer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, and Dawson's Creek.

The tagline reads "No mercy. No shame. No sequel.", the last reference being an ironic nod towards the tendency of popular horror movies becoming cash cow franchises. 2001 saw the release of Scary Movie 2, with the appropriate tagline "We lied". Later video covers of the first film frequently drop the tagline's third statement. The film was originally titled "Last Summer I Screamed Because Halloween Fell on Friday the 13th". Scary Movie was followed by four more sequels Scary Movie 2 (2001), Scary Movie 3 (2003), Scary Movie 4 (2006) and Scary Movie 5 (2013).[1] Its title serves as a homage to the production title of Scream, which was also released through Dimension Films.

Contents

Plot [edit]

An 18 year old girl named Drew Decker (Carmen Electra) receives a threatening phone call while home alone one night. Drew is chased outside by Ghostface, who wounds her with a stab to the breast that removes her implant. She is hit by a car driven by her father who was distracted by oral sex from his wife, then killed by Ghostface.

The next day, Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) meets up with her boyfriend Bobby Prinze (Jon Abrahams) and her friends, Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), Ray Wilkins (Shawn Wayans), Greg Phillipe (Lochlyn Munro), and Buffy Gilmore (Shannon Elizabeth). Various news teams, including hack reporter Gail Hailstorm (Cheri Oteri), converge on the school in the wake of Drew's death. Gail hooks up with Buffy's mentally disabled brother "Special Officer" Doofy (Dave Sheridan) hoping to milk the facts out of him. One day while Cindy is in class, she is left a note indicating knowledge about an incident exactly one year prior, in which she and her friends accidentally killed a man during a wild car ride (although he survived and then got knocked out in various ways, until he finally dies when they slam him in the van) and threw him into the pier after robbing him. The next day a series of increasingly bizarre events take place. Various members of the group receive threatening notes from Ghostface and are rapidly dispatched. The killer murders Greg, Buffy and Brenda and begins to hunt the others down.

Cindy throws a house party, hoping for safety in numbers. During the party, a drunk Cindy finally lets Bobby have sex with her; no longer making Cindy a virgin. Ghostface unexpectedly appears and stabs Bobby, before disappearing quickly. Cindy gets a gun from a drawer near the entrance, Bobby follows and she tends to his wounds. Shorty (Marlon Wayans), Brenda's stoner brother, comes up from the basement, (where Ghostface had been smoking with him and his friends) and informs them that the killer has murdered everybody in the house. Bobby takes the gun and shoots Shorty, revealing that his wound was an elaborate ruse. Ray arrives on the scene, and they announce their plan to kill her father and frame her sister. Ray and Bobby also plan to make themselves look like heroes by giving each other stab wounds to indicate they fought back. But, Ray stabs Bobby repeatedly and accidentally kills him, while making a tirade about his favorite show, The Wayans Bros., being cancelled. However, the real Ghostface abruptly arrives and attacks Cindy after stabbing Ray to death, but she successfully subdues him by employing moves copied from The Matrix and kicks him through a window. Nonetheless, Ghostface vanishes before the police arrive.

At the police station, Cindy and the local sheriff (Kurt Fuller) realize that Doofy, the only one who knew about the car accident, was actually faking his disability and is the true killer. Unfortunately, Doofy has already escaped with Gail Hailstorm. Upon finding his discarded disguise in the street, Cindy begins screaming, only to be hit by a car.

Cast [edit]

Parodies [edit]

Much of the humor of Scary Movie relies upon specific references to other contemporary films. Roger Ebert remarked in his review that "to get your money's worth, you need to be familiar with the various teenage horror franchises."[2] The backstory of the film's plot is modeled after I Know What You Did Last Summer including the teens' accidental murder of an innocent man on a car ride and Barry's murder onstage.[2] Several elements are borrowed from the Scream franchise[2] including the character Ghostface, the attack in the movie theatre was modeled after Scream 2, and the "rules of a trilogy" video from Scream 3. While smoking marijuana, Shorty quips "I see dead people," the line famously spoken by Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense.[3] In a chase scene, the film shifts its point of view to that of a hand-held camera with the characters speaking directly to the audience as in The Blair Witch Project.[3] The scene in which Ray is about to stab Bobby to make the police believe they were the victims of the killer borrows heavily from a similar scene that takes place during the climax of Scream. The killer says the words "Red Rum," a reference to The Shining. The line "We all go a little crazy sometimes" is also used, which is taken from Psycho.

Many scenes and jokes parody or reference other films outside the horror film genre. The fight between Cindy and the killer heavily mimics The Matrix, particularly its use of bullet time.[2] The final scene, in which Doofy stops feigning his disability and drives away with Gail, is a takeoff of the final scene of The Usual Suspects.[3] When asked about her favorite horror movie, Drew answers "Kazaam" due to Shaquille O'Neal's acting.[2] Cindy becomes aggressive and roars "Say my name!" during sex with Bobby, similar to the sex scene between Michelle and Jim in American Pie.[3] A trailer for a fictitious sequel to Amistad titled Amistad II appears in the movie theater scene.[4]

The film also makes other pop culture references beyond the scope of film, including a brief send-up of Dawson's Creek[5] and a parody of the Whassup? ad campaign by Budweiser.[5]

Rating [edit]

In British Columbia, the film Scary Movie was given an 18A rating by the provincial FCO, but was re-rated on appeal by the Motion Picture and Liquor Appeal Board to a 14A. This resulted in a record number of complaints to the British Columbia Film Classification Office from parents who felt the film should have been rated 18A. Many parents wrote letters to their local newspaper warning others that the film may be inappropriate for their fourteen-year-olds. Theatre owners complained about the inappropriate rating as well.[6]

Reception [edit]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 111 reviews.[7]

Joe Leydon of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, remarking that the film was "unbounded by taste, inhibition or political correctness" and that "the outer limits of R-rated respectability are stretched, if not shredded" by the movie.[3] By contrast, Roger Ebert did not find the film as innovative, saying that the film lacked "the shocking impact of Airplane!, which had the advantage of breaking new ground."[2] However, Ebert did give the film 3 stars out of 4, saying it "delivers the goods", calling the film a "raucous, satirical attack on slasher movies."

Bob Longino of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution felt that the film's crude humor detracted from the film, saying that Scary Movie "dives so deep into tasteless humor that it's a wonder it landed an R rating instead of an NC-17."[8] Other reviewers, such as A.O. Scott of The New York Times, argued that the jokes were "annoying less for their vulgarity than for their tiredness."[4] Scott remarked in his review, "Couch-bound pot smokers, prison sex, mannish female gym teachers, those Whassssup Budweiser commercials -- hasn't it all been done to death?".[4] The film was the first to score zero (out of 100) from the Christian ChildCare Action Project, which rates films based on their perceived suitability for minors.

Soundtrack [edit]

Scary Movie
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released July 4, 2000
Recorded 1999-2000
Genre Hip hop, Alternative rock
Length 55:15
Label TVT
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3/5 stars[9]

The soundtrack to Scary Movie was released on July 4, 2000 through TVT Records and consists of a blend of hip hop and rock music.

Track listing
  1. "Too Cool for School"- 2:27 (Fountains of Wayne)
  2. "The Inevitable Return of the Great White Dope"- 3:53 (Bloodhound Gang)
  3. "Stay"- 3:56 (Radford)
  4. "The Only Way to Be"- 3:20 (Save Ferris)
  5. "My Bad"- 3:22 (Oleander)
  6. "Punk Song #2"- 2:46 (Silverchair)
  7. "Everybody Wants You"- 4:11 (Unband)
  8. "Superfly"- 2:55 (Bender)
  9. "I Wanna Be Sedated"- 2:31 (The Ramones)
  10. "Scary Movies (Sequel)- 3:56 (Bad Meets Evil)
  11. "All bout U"- 4:34 (Tupac Shakur, Top Dogg, Yaki Kadafi, Hussein Fatal, Nate Dogg & Dru Down)
  12. "I Want Cha"- 4:37 (Black Eyed Peas)
  13. "What What"- 5:03 (Public Enemy)
  14. "Feel Me"- 3:49 (Rah Digga, Rampage & Rock)
  15. "I'm the Killer"- 3:57 (Lifelong & Incident)

See also [edit]

Portal icon Film in the United States portal
Portal icon Horror portal
Portal icon Comedy portal
Portal icon 2000s portal


References [edit]

  1. ^ http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=87145
  2. ^ a b c d e f Ebert, Roger (July 7, 2000). "Scary Movie". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2011-04-18. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Schwarzbaum, Lisa (July 21, 2000). "Scary Movie". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2011-04-18. 
  4. ^ a b c Scott, A. O. Tomatoes "Scary Movie". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-04-18. 
  5. ^ a b Leydon, Joe (June 29, 2000). "Scary Movie". Variety. Retrieved 2011-04-18. 
  6. ^ Pelton, Steven (2004-08-19). "RECONSIDERATION DECISION: [[Going the Distance (2004 film)|GOING THE DISTANCE]] requested by [[Odeon Films]]" (PDF). British Columbia Film Classification Office. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-12-01.  Wikilink embedded in URL title (help)
  7. ^ Scary Movie at Rotten TomatoesFlixster
  8. ^ Longino, Bob. "Scary Movie". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved 2011-04-18. 
  9. ^ Scary Movie at Allmusic

External links [edit]
Films directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans
1980s
1990s
2000s
Films
Screenplays
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