Film Review – Scary Movie (2026)

      Scary Movie, 2026.

      Directed by Michael Tiddes.

      Featuring Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Dave Sheridan, Heidi Gardner, Lochlyn Munro, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, Jon Abrahams, Felissa Rose, Michael Leavy, Kai Cenat, Paige Mobley, Fedor Steer, Chip Carriere, Hasani Vibez Comer, Anthony Anderson, Kenan Thompson, Teyana Taylor, Shaquille O'Neal, Carmen Electra, and Nedim Jahić.

      SYNOPSIS:

      Two friends find themselves entangled in chaos once more, facing killers, monsters, and supernatural beings. While the film promises a return to politically incorrect humor in a landscape of safer comedies, the reality is that this sequel in the Scary Movie franchise not only falls short of that promise, rendering the discussion pointless, but it also simply isn’t funny. The main issue is that director Michael Tiddes (reportedly working from a screenplay by the Wayans brothers and Rick Alvarez) has crafted not a cohesive film, but rather a series of often disjointed scenes that feel underdeveloped in their attempts at horror and pop culture parody. There is a narrative here that primarily draws from and mashes up the latest Scream and Halloween films, but the erratic editing makes it resemble a collection of incomplete skit ideas that either make no sense within the larger story or simply feel… present.

      A particularly glaring example of this is an abruptly inserted scene with Chris Elliott's returning housekeeper character Harrison, now resembling Nicolas Cage's Longlegs, waiting at a bus stop where a pivotal moment occurred. The filmmakers’ intention behind this joke falls flat, and the scene bears no relevance to the rest of the film. He does not reappear, leaving a dangling plot thread. A similar issue arises with the poking fun at The Substance a few scenes later. This illustrates a larger problem: the creative team seemingly does not understand how or why they want to parody these films, other than acknowledging their popularity, leading to an overcrowded narrative that ultimately lacks substance. There may be the skeleton of a joke, but the scenes never evolve into anything meaningful. To be frank, it's all unimaginative and lackluster.

      This is stated from a place of nostalgia for the series (at least the first three films, even though it's undeniable they declined in quality over time), which featured plenty of targets for humor, yet at least felt like actual movies with coherent plots. No one is seeking sophisticated humor here, but these filmmakers can't even reach the basic standard of what constitutes a film. Why bother getting upset over jokes aimed at LGBTQ characters and politics (which, aside from one scene, aren’t particularly mean-spirited anyway) when the content is so stale and flat that there is quite literally nothing here worth getting worked up about?

      I didn’t mind that the Wayans brothers wished to make a comeback and push boundaries; I simply wanted to laugh. Regrettably, besides a mildly entertaining K-Pop Demon Hunters skit (which works mainly due to the animation and some altered lyrics), an opening that effectively showcases great cameos from the always fabulous Teyana Taylor, and a couple of offhand comments that might have drawn a chuckle, there is very little humor to be found.

      In terms of story, it revolves around a reunion of the original core four: Anna Faris’s clueless yet resilient "John Wick"-style Cindy Crawford, Regina Hall’s sassy Brenda Meeks, Marlon Wayans’s pot-smoking Shorty, and Shawn Wayans’s religiously converted and pretending-to-be-straight Ray, as they try to assist a new generation (which includes some of their children) in surviving the threat of a Ghostface killer.

      Additionally, it’s a stark demonstration of the movie’s laziness that one of Cindy’s daughters is named Tuesday, and this character (portrayed by Savannah Lee Nassif) seems only included for others to repeat her name repeatedly, as if the audience is meant to laugh every time, despite it not being funny even once.

      Furthermore, Ray’s declaration of freedom from "sin" in a church reminiscent of the one from Sinners underscores that the filmmakers don’t know how to move beyond reusing locations and backdrops. Everything feels like a setup for a joke that never arrives, or a punchline that lacks humor and context. They appear desperate for recognition, hoping it will somehow elicit laughter.

      That's the situation with Scary Movie, and as someone who was excited and even hopeful about its return, if this is what we’re given, it might be better off staying buried. The only truly offensive aspect here is