Skip to main content

Scary Movie (2000) - Keenen Ivory Wayans



During the nineties, Keenan Ivory Wayans ran the parody comedy game. His hit television show In Living Color introduced key Wayans family members that have been a staple in his work for years. Namely, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. Both hilarious and both stars in the Keenan Ivory's Scream spoof Scary Movie. 

Following the same narrative of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Teens are ending up murdered in a small California town. Cindy, Bobby, Shorty, Brenda, Ray, Buffy and Greg are all students together at B.A. Corpse High School, We join them just as they had learned that their friend was murdered and it might have something to do with the night that they hit and murdered some fisherman.  

It's hilarious. Like the Animal House of horror. Scenes are memorable and quotable. It should have your sides splitting while simultaneously satisfying your horror thirst. It has so many callbacks to the genre, like our lead Cindy Campbell's name is a play on the name Sidney from Scream and Neve Campbell, the actress that played Sidney. So while it takes obvious stabs at horror movies, it also throws in some pop culture. 

The cast is stellar. It's a showcase of the younger comedians and actors/actresses of the new millennium. Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Shannon Elizabeth, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Lochlyn Munro all turn in some memorable performances with Jon Abrahams as the best. His interpretation of Skeet Ulrich's character Billy was awesome. There are also cameos from pop stars from the time like James Van Der Beek as Dawson. 

It's a really bizarre movie that takes some amusing twists and turns. I loved it. The way that they melded the story with so many different references. This film and the sequel are unfortunately the only two movies in the series that I liked. It started to lose momentum and the horror element. But this is the pinnacle of the Wayans' work at the time. Such a classic. 

Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans
Producer: Eric L. Gold and Lee R. Mayes
Writers: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
Starring: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Jon Abrahams and Shannon Elizabeth
Studio: Dimension Films and Wayans Bros. Entertainment
Release Date: July 7, 2000
Did ya know: When Ray and Brenda are in the movie theatre, the preview screen reads: "The following 'Peeview' has been 'assproved' for immature audiences only. If you can read this you are too close. Pee Pee Poopy Boogers Farts Butthole. Rated I for Immature. We thought it would be funny to put this here. Kiss our asses and take it off pause. This is the humor we are dealing with. 










Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t

Spookies (1986) - Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner

It's impossible to get a decent movie when you take two films and just squash them together. That is essentially the story of how this movie came together. The film started as Twisted Souls. However, according to the financial backer they didn't have enough horror. So they ended up hiring another guy to come in and add a monster in virtually every scene.  This movie started out being directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. It basically is the tale of two sets of teenagers that arrive to a strange building surrounded by a strange cemetery. It was your usual tale of teenagers in a big hows with a few monsters. Then they brought in Genie Joseph and added even more. Like a haunted birthday party, a murderous cat-man, zombies, and an old wizard. It really became a smorgasbord of horror with a very thin plot-line leading it around. This movie is hard to summarize in a conventional way. It just packs so much.  The most interesting part of this movie are defini

Le Diable au Convent (1899) - George Melies

Le Diable au Convent is longer than the two previous Georges Méliès ventures into short form horror. This particular French short shows the Devil himself running a convent and terrorizing the poor old nuns that live there. However he is finally vanquished by the good of Faith. This is yet another Méliès classic, showcasing the art work that really goes into his short film-making. This is one of the earliest examples of a horror movie that could rely on its elaborate set design and artistic design. Everything in this film, although horribly aged, has been packaged extremely well. If you are a fan of production and set design then I would highly recommend just about anything that Melies has his name on. Though nothing that is considered too extreme actually happens, Satan does have his way with a convent. The satanic imagery itself must have kept this film on the traveling carnival circuit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the good moral bag that society shoved itself into back in