The Scary Movie franchise gets back to basics for part six
I didn’t expect to enjoy the 2026 Scary Movie reboot. In fact, I sort of expected to hate everything about it.
But that’s why we don’t review movies until we actually, you know, watch them. And while I don’t think Scary Movie is a “great” movie by any stretch, I begrudgingly found myself entertained by its nonstop parade of parodies, pastiches and put-downs … even when the humor panders to the absolute lowest common denominator, even by Wayans Brothers production standards.
Scary Movie 2K26 can be summed up in one word: “dated.” It’s so behind the eight-ball that its opening spoof lampoons the second to last Scream movie to hit theaters. The film (which is technically the sixth outing in the franchise) feels like it could’ve been made in 2019. If it wasn’t for a long gag about a certain character not realizing the pandemic is “over,” I’d argue that Scary Movie indeed feels like a pre-COVID product, for all that entails.
But “dated” isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this particular context. Pretty much the fun of the film is witnessing just how many different genre movies the flick can parody and take pot shots at and in that regard, Scary Movie does not disappoint. Practically EVERY major horror movie made over the last ten years is at least superficially acknowledged and/or ridiculed — the Blumhouse Halloween trilogy, Get Out, The Substance, M3GAN, It Follows. There’s even a borderline brilliant animated sequence that takes K-Pop Demon Hunters to task, for crying out loud. And if you don’t laugh your head off about the no-budget Jermaine Jackson biopic coming to Tubi, you probably aren’t the intended audience for this website.
It’s a film that tries to reintroduce the primary cast from the original Scary Movie. Of course, that film came out in 2000 — a very, VERY different time in American history. Quite a few scenes in the 2026 do-over poke fun at the values dissonance from the now 26-year-old series progenitor, although the newer film still has a tendency to eye the lowest of low-hanging fruit. It’s a slightly softer satire this time around, but there are still plenty of questionable (and just plain unfunny) jokes about trans characters, homophobia, social justice warriors and the developmentally disabled on the slate. And since it is a product of its time, of course we get a ton of gags about cryptocurrency, legalized weed, January 6 insurrectionists and Twitch streamers. In one of the most telling moments I’ve had in recent memory at a multiplex, the single biggest cheer the entire movie received was when the video game Dead By Daylight made a cameo appearance.
The legacy characters — as intentionally one-dimensional as they may be — are still more entertaining than the next generation characters introduced in the film. Even the writers of the film acknowledge this in the movie’s grand finale (which I won’t spoil for you here, if nothing else, because there’s a GREAT cameo by an all-time NBA great involved.) We’ve got Anna Farris basically playing Jamie Lee Curtis in the last three Halloween pictures, Marlon Wayans as the pot-loving Shorty (who pretty much IS the best thing about the entire movie), Cheri Oteri as a MAGA-fied version of Gale Weathers and Dave Sheridan reprising his role as Officer Doofy. Most of the punchlines are interchangeable and you really shouldn’t expect much in the way of logical consistency throughout the movie. It’s a screwball parody movie, after all — if you think “dead” characters are going to stay “dead” in this thing, you really punched your ticket to the wrong kind of motion picture.
It’s very much a “hit and miss” kind of comedy. Some of the parodies are spot on and others feel forced and pointless. The parody of Weapons — spawned by weed-laced trick or treat candy — is absolutely terrific, while the parody of Sinners feels like a last-second insert that should’ve stayed on the cutting room floor. There are some returning franchise characters who don’t have much at all to do in their squandered extended cameos (Chris Elliot deserves so much better) and there’s really only one gross-out scatalogical sight gag in the entire film (be forewarned, when Shorty starts giving out advice on cunnilingus, brace yourself.)
You can tell the writers of the film (and there are no less than FIVE of them credited for this feature) really had a blast sneaking in as many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it references as they could. Really, Scary Movie is a film that works best when it’s forced to play it subtle. That’s why the three-second-long gag about a Final Destination themed amusement park works wonderfully while the woefully long parody of Terrifier 3 falls flat. Elsewhere in the film, you kind of get the idea that the writers thought what was on the page was absolutely hilarious — only for the filmed product to feel a bit lazy and trite. A good example is the Candyman remake joke, which goes for such an absurdly obvious punchline that the buildup is kinda’ worthless. But hey, at least we get a canonical appearance by one half of the White Chicks a few seconds before then … whatever that’s worth to you.
Scary Movie is a film that sort of falls in the middle, in that space where slightly above average genre films tend to find themselves all the time. It’s nowhere near as bad as some critics claim it to be, but it’s not as good as some fan reactions have been, either. It’s a mixed bag movie if there ever was one. When it works, it works, and when it doesn’t, well … let’s just say some scenes in this film are very hard to sit through.
I think the most ironic thing about Scary Movie is that it was released at the exact same time the horror genre as a whole was going through one of those much ballyhooed renaissance periods we seem to always have (and forget about) every five years or so. Had this movie come out just a few months later, I’m sure we would’ve gotten plenty of jokes about Obsession and Backrooms and Hokum, and it probably would’ve had a much different tone and style as a result. If Scary Movie is meant to be a reflection of its time — politically and culturally — it feels off by about a year or two. Which means it’ll feel off by about two decades this time next year.
After all — as soon as I heard that “6-7” joke, I knew this thing was going to be pure unc.
GIVE IT A WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Weed, outdated references, more weed
Director: Michael Tiddes
Writer(s): Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenan Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans, Rick Alvarez
Starring: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Farris, Cheri Oteri
Studio: Miramax/Wayan Brothers Entertaiment
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Runtime: 96 Minutes
Language: English
Release Date: June 05, 2026
