The Scary Movie franchise gets a reboot. But is a reboot even a reboot if it’s more of the same? Graphic sexual content, harsh language, rampant drug use and bloody violence should sink Scary Movie for families—and anyone else, really.
A masked killer is after Tuesday Campbell.
Or maybe the killer is after Tuesday’s estranged sister, Sara, and only attacked Tuesday to lure Sara back to their hometown.
Or maybe the killer is really after the girls’ doubly estranged mother, Cindy, who has endured four of these parodies—I mean, experiences—already.
Regardless, the Campbell family (not to mention pals Brenda, Ray and Shorty) now must navigate a barrage of spoofs, incessant drug use and their own good old-fashioned stupidity if they want to survive and unmask the killer.
But, hey, even if they don’t make it, they’ll probably just show up in Scary Movie 7, anyway. As you can tell, it’s all a bit of a mess, but don’t worry about it.
The movie certainly doesn’t.
None.
Congregants gather in a small country church, where a pastor’s sermon is framed as a crude double entendre. Crosses hang on the walls of the church. A few cartoonish demons make a brief appearance in one animated scene.
Someone “prays” as part of a gag. A woman lies, saying that God healed her from a serious injury. (She was never hurt in the first place.) Song lyrics mention Jesus.
Scary Movie is full of explicit sexual content. Full frontal male nudity is shown, as well as the bare rear ends of both men and women. Female genitalia are nearly displayed onscreen, too. Several scenes depict characters having sex, complete with movements and sounds. One scene makes an obscene joke about a woman’s discharge. We hear that a high school girl engaged in a sexual encounter with several men at once. Other sexual acts are discussed in graphic detail.
A man claims to be “gay no more,” but his actions call that claim into question. He imitates a sexual act with a microphone and talks about dressing in women’s clothes. He also recounts a scene from The Silence of the Lambs where a man tried to imitate the appearance of a naked woman.
In an animated, musical sequence, people talk about and pantomime having sex with demons. We see some suggestive motions and the result for one of the participants seems to be a sort of supernatural sexually transmitted infection.
A girl takes her boyfriend’s erectile dysfunction medication, which inexplicably results in her having an erection that is visible through her pants.
A character identifies as transgender. Sex toys make frequent appearances. Someone is described as “sex positive.” Several women and men wear revealing clothing. We hear lewd jokes about male and female anatomy.
The Scary Movie franchise originated, mostly, as a spoof of the slasher-horror movie Scream. (Ghostface is something of a primary character in this parody flick, at least as much as fair use laws will allow.) So, as you’d expect, slasher violence is in the mix here, too.
While the violence is played for dark-humored laughs, blood still flies as characters get stabbed and shot. Someone gets decapitated, and we see the resulting stump of his neck. A splash of blood accompanies some throat-slashing. In one scene, a killer hands out amputated body parts to children—including a man’s severed testicles.
During an over-the-top fight scene, someone uses sex toys as weapons, which she uses to violate one of her opponents.
A woman gets injected with a mysterious substance that causes her back to split open and another person to emerge from her body. A child is struck by a car and sent flying. Police officers excessively beat a Black man (seemingly a spoof of racial profiling). Other characters are beaten as well.
A house is set ablaze with people trapped inside. Theme park rides crash, killing their occupants.
The f-word is used 40 times. There are more than 35 uses of the s-word. The n-word is used more than 20 times. God’s name is misused 10 times, paired a few times with “d–n.” The name of Jesus is abused twice.
“B–ch” is heard nearly 30 times. Additional profanity includes “a–” and “a–hole,” “h—,” “d–k,” “p—y” and “d–n.” The slang “ho” is used several times. Other crude terms for male and female anatomy are used.
Drug use is rampant in this Scary Movie reboot. One guy smokes marijuana several times, and in several different ways, throughout the film. Other people join him in getting high. Someone abuses prescription medication. Another character receives hard drugs via an IV drip while in the hospital. A dealer offers drugs to prospective clients.
Cindy has an enormous pile of empty liquor bottles in her house. A mother offers an alcohol and drug concoction to her children and their friends in an attempt to seem “cool.” A group of trick-or-treating children are mistakenly given drugs instead of candy.
We hear about cocaine, psychedelic mushrooms and vaping. Someone says that he enjoys “roofie-ing” himself. A man wears a necklace with a marijuana leaf pendant.
One character seems to have a mental disability, and the movie offers up several jokes at his expense.
Scary Movie contains several racially charged comments and jabs. References are made to Nazi salutes, wokeism, DEI hires, ICE and the Epstein Files. A character claims to have “stormed the capital” on June 6, 2021. Someone talks about the COVID pandemic.
A man wipes his own excrement on someone’s face. We see a character’s urine filling a bag while she is in the hospital.
Scream. Sinners. The Substance. Even John Wick. These, and many more, are all on the list of films spoofed by this latest Scary Movie offering. The parody franchise has made its bones over the years by mining vulgar jokes from relevant (and not-so-relevant) horror and pop culture properties. This newest installment (unhelpfully sharing the title of its originator) continues that trend.
Is a reboot even a reboot if it’s more of the same?
This lewd, obscene spoof barely holds together across mocking asides of more competent films. It abandons the idea of cleverness in favor of juvenile shocks and gross-out comedy that includes explicit sexual content, bloody violence, vulgar language and frequent drug use.
Scary Movie’s tagline is “Every line will be crossed.” The filmmakers do their darndest to deliver on that promise … to the detriment of the viewing public.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
