Directed By Michael Tiddes

Starring – Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans

The Plot – Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer, Shorty (Marlon Wayans), Ray (Shawn Wayans), Cindy (Faris) and Brenda (Hall) find themselves targeted by another mad slasher.

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

Scary Movie | Official Trailer (2026 Movie) – Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, Regina Hall

POSITIVES

After committing the colossal mistake of ridding the Wayans family from the franchise that they helped build from the ground up, this sixth and much improved installment from the previous two, marks a reinvigorated reunion for the Wayans and their respective ensemble from that lightning in a bottle original spoof, in turn imbedding the movie with the kind of much-needed energy and vulnerability to delve into the kind of self-deprecating humor that takes confident actors to effectively pull off. While the material itself gives any of these credible faces very little to capably work with, it’s impressive how seamlessly each of these actors slip back into their respective roles, with Anna Faris’ Cindy and Regina Hall’s Brenda exuding the kind of naturally lived-in chemistry that prospered between them over twenty-five years ago, while Marlon Wayans’ Shorty and Shawn Wayans’ Ray prove how little has changed between them, as each are still the stoned cold and homoerotic products of early 2000’s characterization, without anything even slightly stumbling on the radiant charisma that these four supplant to their bombastic personalities. Beyond the flourishing appeal from the original ensemble returning to the scene of the crime, the film is boosted tremendously by remarkable production values, that not only convey a much-inflated budget towards its spent execution, but also an impressively faithful element of meticulous detail that recreates the scenes from the spoofed movies, in ways that feel effortlessly attainable to the interpretive tendencies of the audience. It’s one thing to render iconic slasher characters or even an intricacy of set designs that feel directly plucked from the sets of what was initially conjured, but it means so much more when every element about the visuals feeds into this distinctively absorbing quality with parody, that are executed wonderfully in lighting schemes and camera techniques of the most expressive familiarity to Terry Stacey’s captivating cinematography. Considering the film’s creativity is limitless in the movies it spares no expense stepping on, the magnifying level of wide range capture makes it among the most surprisingly ambitious shoots of the year, without anything that feels cheaply rendered or artificially compromising to the overall appeal of the cinematic experience, with some of my favorite elaborately intoxicating sequences of the entire movie leaving me spellbound by how they were able to accurately depict iconic imagery so convincingly, without suffering legal ramifications from insecure studios. On top of a charming ensemble and legitimate production values, while the effectiveness of the film’s comedic material will vary from respective audiences, with my own personal experiences even feeling inconsistent, the shift back to a much-needed R-rating allows the material the kind of necessary freedom and unconforming comfortability to capably express the most adult-emphasized jokes to its adoring audience, with this sixth installment possibly being the crudest among the entire franchise. Because there isn’t an evidential safety net that watered down the material from the previous three films, there’s an unpredictable element to the gags that makes it feel like anything is possible with where the writers intend to take such occasionally touchy subject matter, an undervalued aspect to this deconstructive franchise that, for better or worse, leaves any of our favorite horror franchises ripe for the picking, in turn evoking a few legitimately gut-busting laughs that kept me invested, even when the storytelling of the overarching narrative starts to evidently slump in more than a few places.

NEGATIVES

As to where the absence of the Wayans brothers made it easy for the previous three films in the franchise to manufacture a situational scapegoat for underwhelmed audiences to point the finger of blame for its inferiority to the original two films, the unforeseen reality is that this sixth film involving them squanders with inconsistent material that at its worst feels outdated and ineffective in the punchlines of its long-winded outlining, making even a 91-minute runtime feel overbearingly padded with so much repetitious reheating and unedited lingering in the deliveries of its gags. Part of the problem is certainly that the material is still every bit the same juvenile and oversexed consistency that the Wayans have reheated for three decades, but there’s just as much lack of confidence to the detectability of these deliveries, that allows them to fall so flat for Michael Tiddes’ intended direction, with lingered ad-libbing prolonging some of the very childishly tasteless and unfunny gags of the entire movie, in turn leaving me screaming in joy for the eventual transitions to the next scenes, which still feel too prolonged to feel prominently alleviating. Even when it attempts to be controversial for the sake of aiming towards the two divided political sides of our society, the enacted social commentary involving touchy subject matter of the trans community, racist republicans, or patriarchal views, is nothing even remotely sharp or controversially penetrating as the movie’s marketing campaign would have you believe, instead opting to sift through the stereotypes of what has been thoroughly documented in the public eye, without the desire to tackle these thematic impulses in a refreshingly insightful eye that makes the movie daring and thought-provoking, instead of immaturely ill-timed. The same can certainly be said for the movie’s explorative arc within the movie, which feels like it faithfully follows Scream 5 more than any other film it candidly satirizes, with a lazily lackadaisical consistency during the movie’s second half, that feels like even the screenwriters are losing patience with having to maintain this intended direction in the storytelling. While nobody ever watches a Scary Movie to feel stimulated by three-dimensional characters or profound conflicts, there are expectational continuities in a set-up, evolution, and execution that allow the movie’s creative impulses to register these parodied scenes from other movies naturally to the movie’s intended foundation, however the storytelling goes off of the rails late in the second act, with much of the progressing storytelling on hold, in favor of these individualized skits that add little to nothing to the integral fabric of the movie’s characters. This is not to say that these scattered moments don’t inject some much-needed momentum in the movie’s favor, as I found elaborately staged sequences pertaining to Get Out and LongLegs to be among the most hilariously articulated of the entire movie, it’s just that they hold such little relevance to the established narrative in the foreground of the storytelling, and as a result enact this scatterbrained sloppiness that remains prominently displayed for far too long, in turn taking away too much of the focus from an abundance of newly introduced characters, who feel so unimportant to the overall experience. This is where the film truly gets ugly for me personally, as none of the performances assembled for the series’ newest additions feels even remotely on the same field as its experienced veterans, with Olivia Rose Keegan’s Sara, and Savannah Lee Nassif’s Tuesday, being among my least favorite performances of the entire year. Some people will appreciate what Keegan is doing here, as she tries to mimic Faris’ expressive mannerisms, as a means of portraying her on-screen daughter, but I found her facial contortions and infant-like emotionality painfully distracting during scenes where I’m asked to focus away from her, where this character serving as the gateway to the next generation of characters is every bit annoying as she is a parody in herself. It’s no better for Nassif, as not only does the script do nothing to correspond Tuesday’s relevance as a spoof of Wednesday Addams, but it’s balanced so stuffily with childish antics and squishy facial registries that possibly convey an indigestion inferiority from within, cementing no semblance of concrete value to the franchise’s newest additions, which in turn requires the script to remain faithfully alongside its developed veterans, instead of rendering coinciding depth to the next generation of outlandish personalities.

OVERALL
Scary Movie does represent a humbled homecoming for celebrated members of the original movies, but underneath the warmth of nostalgic allure and financial opportunity, there’s a reheated and regressive consistency to the ineffectiveness of the comedic material, that only provides effective relief in sporadically randomized doses, leaving this a raunchily regurgitated scattershot satirizing without any kind of stimulating substance to its stunningly seamless visual recreations.

My Grade: 5.1 or D