(USA, 2000, dir. Keenan Ivory Wayans) Cast: Cindy Campbell - Anna Faris, Buffy Gilmore - Shannon Elizabeth, Doofy - Dave Sheridan, Drew - Carmen Electra.
Although SCREAM 2 and I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER were bad enough to finish off the recent horror revival on their own, this fairly amusing spoof gets a good hour and a half out of parasitically squeezing the remaining life from the genre. SCARY MOVIE is basically a retread of SCREAM crossed with I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER with a few NAKED GUN type jokes thrown in to keep on the right side of the lawyers.
There are some very funny sequences but I absolutely refuse to mention them. I was unfortunate enough to read a couple of reviews before going to see SCARY MOVIE and each one decided to transcribe some of the best lines. This is no doubt a strategy on the part of the critics to improve the quality of their writing by putting in bits of someone else's rather than justifiable quotation and I always find it really annoying. You've laughed at the idea of the moments you've read about, but then when they actually come along you just find yourself smiling thinly. All enjoyment has been taken away. At least, that's what happens to me.
So, having dismissed the idea of bringing the good bits to your attention, is it really fair if I mention the not-so-good bits? Probably not, but I will anyway. The most glaring problem is that the story of SCARY MOVIE sticks so rigidly to to it's source material that at times it's little more that an Am-Dram re-staging rather than a movie in it's own right. Sort of like all those student productions of RESERVOIR DOGS that turned up in University theatres in the early to mid 90s. Also, the post-Farrelly levels of crudity are shoe-horned in for no particular reason other than to follow a current trend. Sadly, whilst something intrinsically good like AMERICAN PIE was able to get mileage out of this new style, SCARY MOVIE never gets beyond schoolboy "oops I farted" nonsense.
Historically, though, horror spoofs have rarely worked. Polanski's FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is as bad a film as has ever disgraced celluloid and frankly, few of the others have been up to that standard. It is to director Wayan's credit that he has managed to come up ith something entertaining and diverting. It's not actually good, but then I'm not even sure that SLEEPY HOLLOW was and I absolutely loved that.
So, my advice is - go and see SCARY MOVIE but don't, on any account, read anything else about it beforehand.
Chris Denton.
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