Scary Movie

Scary Movie; Horror parody, USA, 2000; D: Keenen Ivory Wayans, S: Anna Faris, Shannon Elizabeth, Jon Abrahams, Dave Sheridan, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Regina Hall, Carmen Electra

Blond beauty Drew gets attacked by a masked murderer in her house, who after a few failed attempts kills her with a knife. The school is shocked by the murder, but Cindy has a hunch about who the perpetrator could be: exactly one year earlier, she and her friends accidentally killed a man on a road with a car and threw his body in the sea. Maybe he survived and wants revenge? There is also the curious journalist Understorm and the naive police officer Doofy. The murders continue, but in the end it is discovered that Doofy was the murderer behind the mask, and he manages to escape.

The critics were not especially satisfied with "Scary Movie", but it's a matter of a occasionally funny little flick that ridicules all the major horror movies of the 90s. The biggest complaint is that all those parodies were not done with sophistication, but with 'garbage humor', and the second half is already wasted, tiresome and shows the director Keenen Ivory Wayans exaggerating more in tastelessness and less in pure humor. Among the better ideas is the deliciously brassy situation in which the boy-bruiser goes to his high school locker and discovers a photo of a small penis, under which it's written: "I know". Of course he gets very angry, and the whole thing is amusing and can easily pass, but once genital gags start queuing more and more during the course of the film, the whole thing becomes too silly. Among the funnier and more intelligent gags is the one where the main heroine Cindy is angry at the elusive murderer who is constantly hiding, so she goes out in the open and starts shouting: "What are you waiting for?!!! What are you waiting for?!!", upon which some suicidal professor jumps from the roof. Everything is kinky, but a parody on horrors would have been more successful if it hadn't have been so childish and crude.

Grade:+