Watching nothing but horror movies for six weeks can get a bit grueling if you don’t know how to pace yourself, by which I mean incorporating something a little less dour into the marathon so you don’t completely burn yourself out. I already managed to sneak one parody into this year’s proceedings, but it’s not like there’s a quota or a maximum or anything, so let’s watch a couple of Scary Movies. That is, movies from the Scary Movie franchise, a series of horror parodies that was developed by the Wayans brothers around the turn of the century.
Today, we’ll take a look at the first two movies in the series, which happens to coincide with the Wayans’ involvement (the series would shamble on under the leadership of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer for a few more movies, and they would also attempt to expand the concept to other genre parodies, mostly to disastrous reviews.) I may get to some additional Scary Movie entries in the inevitable 6WH Speed Round, but for now, we’ll just hit the first two.
Six Weeks of Halloween: Week 3.5 – Scary Movies
- Scream (trailer)
- How Scream Should Have Ended (short)
- Student Bodies (trailer)
Scary Movie – As a genre, horror experienced a bit of a boom in the 1970s and 80s but had mostly run out of steam by the early 90s (still good stuff if you know where to look, but definitely not as popular or accessible.) That changed in 1996 with Scream, the self-aware neo-slasher that ignited a stream of mainstream deconstructions of horror flicks. This wave of ironic meta-takes on horror only lasted a few years, but there were enough movies to warrant a string of parodies in the Scary Movie series.
This first entry mainly spoofs Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer (including their sequels), and follows the stories closely. It’s a bit of an odd target. Scream and it’s ilk aren’t precisely parodies, but they’re already a comedic rendition where the folks in the movie know about horror tropes and joke about subverting the conventions. So this plays a bit like a parody of a parody, resulting in less scares and more jokes for sure, but it’s cruder and less intelligent. Which, like, has its place, don’t get me wrong (I like a good fart joke as much as the next guy), but I probably laughed more at Scream than I did at this. This is partly due to some dated humor (much of which runs afoul of current mores, especially amongst the gender and sexuality crowd), but hard as it may be to believe, things were like that 24 years ago (jeeze, has it really been that long, ugh).
The only bit that really hit home in a memorable way was when Shannon Elizabeth was attacked by the killer and gives a sorta play-by-play of how the tropes are supposed to play out that continues even once she’s been beheaded. That’s actually pretty clever and well executed. Plenty of other movies (and, um, Budweiser commercials) get referenced, including some weird non-horror choices – in particular, there’s a big Matrix-style bullet-time sequence that seems kinda incongruous. I dunno, it’s not like other classic parodies don’t contain far afield references (i.e. Airplane referencing Saturday Night Fever), but they usually seem more in line with the main thread of the parody.
So this isn’t exactly a classic genre spoof or a must-watch, but if you can get past some of it’s dated elements, it displays a reasonable degree of cromulence and it made me chuckle a few times, which is always a welcome change of pace during the six weeks of Halloween. **
- The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror: Bad Dream House (Disney+)
- There’s Nothing Out There (trailer)
- Grindhouse: Don’t (Fake Trailer)
Scary Movie 2 – The gang is back, this time being invited to stay the weekend in an old spooky house at the behest of a professor who wants to see how their trauma (from the first movie) impacts the ghosts that are living in the house. Or something like that.
This time around, they take a much broader cross-section of the horror genre, spoofing the likes of The Exorcist, House on Haunted Hill, The Haunting, 13 Ghosts, and many more. Many of these movies had received prominent, big budget remakes in the years preceding this movie, but the general premise is something of a horror staple anyway, so this aspect tends to work a little bit better than the first movie (on the other hand, there’s nothing as memorable or creative as the aforementioned Shannon Elizabeth bit from the first movie). It’s only a year later, so you get the same crude behavior and style of joke, and while I laughed plenty of times, this ain’t exactly a classic either. Also, they do the thing where they spoof other popular movies of the day, this time Charlie’s Angels, which again, doesn’t really fit with the horror theme, but whatever.
I never really mentioned the cast when discussing the first movie, but most of them return in this one. The series is led by Anna Faris and Regina Hall, who are actually solid, have good comedic timing, and decent chemistry with each other and the rest of the cast. Shawn and Marlon Wayans are also doing their usual schtick to decent enough effect. David Cross and Tim Curry are always fantastic and provide a bit of a boost, but Chris Elliott is perhaps overused here and gets a little grating (I like Elliott, but he’s best in smaller doses).
Again, not exactly a classic, but it’s always nice to break things up a bit during a horror marathon. **
These aren’t exactly the best horror comedies out there, but I’ll likely hit up a couple more of them in the remaining weeks as a palate cleanser. Anywho, stay tuned for some Sci-Fi Horror (eh, loosely defined Sci-Fi), coming on Sunday.