The knife-wielding serial killer known as Ghostface unwisely tries to stab Teyana Taylor in the opening scene of “Scary Movie” and it goes rather poorly. The dagger the psycho plunges into the famously fit actor's abdomen bounces off, horribly bent.
“I'm Teyana Taylor,” she announces. “My abs have abs.”
Ghostface accepts the loss but then taunts the actor for having lost the best supporting Oscar this year. She accepts that but then smacks him across
the face with what she did win — a Golden Globe. Thunk!
It's a sequence that perfectly captures the Wayans family sense of humor: Cartoonish, topical, gross, profane, absurd and sometimes — just sometimes — hysterical.
What seems like a dozen of Wayans have reunited for the latest chapter in the parody horror franchise “Scary Movie,” a pastiche of loosely tied skits that riff off current and past horror movies as well as topical events like ICE raids and the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef. It's a dizzying, breathless chapter, as you might expect with pent-up targets stocked up since the last outing was in 2013.
The script is by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans and Rick Alvarez, with direction by Michael Tiddes. More Wayans lurk in the credits.
Like any movie with that many writers of different ages, you can almost assign the jokes — a “The Jeffersons” reference mixes with one for ChatGPT. The guys actually return to scream “Wazzup!,” which is over a quarter of a century old.
If you wanted a tight plot, this is not the movie for you. Basically, Ghostface from the “Scream” franchise is hunting the “Scary Movie” original Core Four — Marlon Wayans' Shorty, Shawn Wayans' Ray, Anna Faris' Cindy and Regina Hall's Brenda. There are a ton of uncredited guest stars and returning ones, some who have been long dead (Don't ask).
The Core Four are adults now — one has a daughter named Tuesday (get it “Wednesday” fans?) — and they're all a bit of a mess. Cindy is hitting the bottle (not of conditioner, if you know what I mean) while Shorty is still a stoner who plays video games but now he's super rich thanks to crypto. One of Cindy's kids chugs pills from a prescription bottle labeled “Mommy issues.”
“We’ve got to save the franchise,” they agree.
There are jokes about Kanye West, how promiscuous people are these days called "sex-positive," COVID-19, Ted Bundy, “Saltburn,” Candace Owens, DEI hires, “Silence of the Lambs” and OnlyFans. Scatalogial humor abounds, as well as a deep vein of good, old fashioned homophobic yucks. One actor is told to stop trying to win an Oscar: “It’s a horror movie. Ask Demi Moore.”
The writers goof on “Terrifier 3,” giving a nod to the iconic mall Santa scene in which Art the Clown now hands out very gross presents, as well as “Sinners” — in which Shawn Wayans reprises his barely closeted gay character — and “Weapons,” where the children running across lawns with their arms out are doing so because they ate Halloween candy spiked with drugs.
But especially toward the end, the filmmakers tread water with their references to “M3GAN,” Get Out," "Candyman" and "The Substance" — simply showing us a set-up from those films without doing anything to really skewer them. Just putting M3GAN in the subway isn't that funny. Better is a amusement park themed on “Final Destination” — with rides that constantly crash and the slogan “Where everybody dies.”
There's a lazy, bizarre sequence that takes on “KPop Demon Hunters” with a jolt of animation and the song “Golden” — the original lyrics “We're gonna, gonna be golden” become “We about to be tokin'” — that ends up with one character in bed with three demon hunters.
There are moments when the franchise folds in on itself, as when Cheri Oteri returns as Gail Hailstorm, parodying Courteney Cox’s “Scream” character Gale Weathers, and Chris Elliott reprises his creepy haunted mansion caretaker with a tiny, deformed hand from the second film entry.
Can you parody your own previous parody? While we're at it, why is “Scream” so lazily and heavily leaned on in 2026? Why are there so many sex toys? And how much did Angry Orchard hard cider pay for its product placement?
It's best not to ask such deep questions. “I know who goes to a Wayans brother movie,” says Taylor before she assaults Ghostface. She's right: It's us, willing to slog through tons of gross-out misfires for that one, great killer bit.
“Scary Movie,” a Paramount Pictures release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “crude sexual content, graphic nudity, strong violence and drug content and language throughout.” Running time: 95 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
