John’s “Scary Movie” flashback review, Oct. 18, 2021
“Scary Movie” – True, “Scream” was itself a horror satire, but it inadvertently revived the very films it made fun of by being really scary. Four years later, “Scary Movie” delivers an outright parody of “Scream” and its ilk. The opening scene sets the stage: It’s an almost exact replica of “Scream’s” Drew Barrymore sequence, only totally exaggerated, and with a fart joke thrown in. Directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans and starring Shawn and Marlon Wayans (who are also among the film’s writers), “Scary Movie” delivers the obvious in a funny way. After a group of drug-, beer- and sex-crazed teens runs over an old man a la “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the guy gets up and announces, “It’s all right, I’m fine,” but the kids are too panicked to notice. Anna Faris delivers humorously accurate readings of Jennifer Love Hewitt’s “Last Summer” lines. The Wayanses also take a poke at popular bad movies like “The Blair Witch Project,” “The Matrix” and “The Usual Suspects” and the “Whassup” Budweiser commercials. B+
– John Hansen, NDSU Spectrum, Sept. 8, 2000