'Scary Movie' turns 25: Revisiting the parody movie that revolutionised the genre
Films take many forms. You have your popular comedy movies, mass appeal action blockbuster movies, sentimental dramas that tend to tug at your heartstrings and strike a chord with the heavier aspects of human emotion. But there is a variety of movies that haven’t been looked upon for a while now: Stupid movies.
You see, in the early 2000s, there was a genre of comedy films that dominated screens: Parody films. Movies that mock, exaggerate or twist familiar genres—romance, comedy, horror—into something outrageous. These were movies that, if you were to put it in simple terms, are just plain stupid—and proudly so. Funny, usually controversial and just downright bizarre. Films that are not meant to be a heavy watch—you just sat back, laughed, cringed and questioned the sheer ridiculousness that unfolded before your eyes.
And none of them was quite as influential as the 2000 film Scary Movie, directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written by his brothers Marlon and Shawn Wayans, both of whom were its lead stars. The movie was made to poke fun at the films from the slasher horror subgenre that grew steadily popular at the time—particularly Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, although several other films and TV shows like Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Usual Suspects, The Matrix, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were also parodied in some scenes.
The film parodied many different films, giving the audience a barrage of absurd, slapstick and crazy comedy. The movie's opening parodies Scream, beginning on a suspenseful tone but slowly turning more absurd, ending with Carmen Electra’s character being killed in a very over-the-top fashion. Although the film's plot follows a mix of particularly I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, everything is exaggerated and nonsensical. In fact, there are several scenes where the characters break the fourth wall, commenting on several horror movie cliches happening in the movie. One character literally says, “I’ll be right back,” and then dies, mocking the horror movie rule.
What truly set the movie apart was its complete embrace of R-rated humour. It joked about race, sexuality, gender, disability, pop culture and horror tropes in a way that no other movie had done. Making a movie today like that might not even be possible. A lot of its jokes can be seen as problematic in the modern world, and in an era of sensitivity and cancel culture debates, releasing a movie like this would definitely be a risky move. However, we can see its influence everywhere today—in YouTube parodies, TikTok videos, and memes that dominate Gen Z algorithms.
The movie was also insanely popular and a commercial success, debuting at number one at the US box office. It grossed $42,346,669 during its opening weekend, breaking the record for the biggest R-rated movie opening. In fact, it remains the most successful parody movie to date, box office-wise. The film ultimately grossed $157,019,771 in the United States and Canada, surpassing Good Will Hunting as Miramax's highest-grossing film in that market.
The film had a worldwide gross of $278 million, spawning four sequels and launching a wave of similarly styled parody movies such as Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Superhero Movie, and Meet the Spartans. Scary Movie did not just spoof horror; it changed the boundaries of what parodies could be and comedy could look like. It laid the groundwork for what Internet comedy is today, where randomness and delivery often trump structure and subtlety.
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