Another day, another reboot announcement. This time, it’s the Scary Movie franchise, that was originally started by Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Marlon Wayans. Neal H. Hortiz is confirmed as the producer of the upcoming reboot. There’s no word on whether the original cast or creators will return. The news of a Scary Movie reboot isn’t too surprised as the brand was a hot commodity in the early 2000’s. As the title suggests, Scary Movie made fun of various horror films; with Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and The Ring being some of the notable victims of the parody.
Scary Movie was a huge success in the beginning. The first film grossed $278 million worldwide based on a $19 million product budget. The franchise were into overload after that as numerous parody films for the series were born. However, the main Scary Movie series saw diminishing returns at the box office. The series has been on hiatus since Scary Movie 5 on made $78 million in 2013. The Scary Movie franchise was certainly enjoyable for it’s time, but given how much the culture has changed, is a reboot even necessary?
The Scary Movie Franchise Doesn’t Particularly Hold Up Well
The idea of a parody is a great one. Classics like Airplane, The Naked Gun, Blazing Saddles, and Tropic Thunder cleverly tackle genre tropes and hilariously subverts them. Satires and parodies are always a welcome addition, but looking back at the Scary Movie franchise, it doesn’t hold up as much as some of the more notable films of the genre. A big reason for that is the series has always gone for predictable and low ball gags.
Rape, fart jokes, sex jokes, any type of humor that kids made in elementary school was made throughout these five films. The problem with this franchise is that there is no nuance and cleverness behind their commentary. They all feel like rejected SNL skits randomly pieced together in each film. It’s poking fun at the horror genre, but not in a clever way like Scream or The Cabin in the Woods. There’s nothing wrong with dumb and juvenile humor. Idiocracy is the king of this; however, that film had a coherent story that didn’t live and die based on it’s low brow gags.
That isn’t to say that the series doesn’t have it’s moment. There’s certainly laughs to be had in franchise, but the lack of narrative focus is what really kills Scary Movie. The series tries to make fun of so many things that were hot in pop culture that it doesn’t allow itself to create a believable story with well defined characters.
Some Of The Best Horror Films Are Satire
The horror genre is no stranger to satire; Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Cabin in the Woods, Shaun of the Dead, Scream, there’s no shortage of classic films that poke fun at horror tropes. The big reason that these films are so great is because they have a straight-forward narrative. The Cabin in the Woods has your stereotypical group of young adults in your typical slasher film. Scream does everything that normal slashers do, but subverts expectations by taking it in a different direction. Previously, a girl who has sex in a horror movie was considered the slut of the group. Sidney Prescott does have sex in the film, but she’s doesn’t die.
The Cabin in the Woods plays off the slut trope with Jules, but we get better understanding on why her character is considered poison within such a world. The point is that these films excel at the satire because they’re diving deep into the roots of what horror is.
Horror has evolved since the final Scary Movie film and there’s plenty of new tropes to be made fun of. Horror and satire go hand-and-hand, the key is respecting the material that came before it, but subverting expectations that mocks said trope and create something original.
Can A Scary Movie Reboot Work?
Horror and satire will never go out of style. Bodies Bodies Bodies, The Blackening, and Spree are most recent satires that successfully take a stab at this genre. Scary Movie can certainly return as there’s no shortage of material to make fun of, but it can’t be the same franchise that came out in the early 2000’s.
It was nothing more than an easy cash that mocked whatever was hot in pop culture at the time. Scary Movie loses sight of what the original intention was; there’s nothing with the series being crass and stupid. In fact, there’s a way those two things can work as a horror satire, but it can’t feel like a disjointed mess of silly gags happening to characters we could care less about. A Scary Movie reboot can work, but not if the formula of the series remains then the same.
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