The Wayans Legacy: Masters of Parody
The Wayans brothers—Keenen Ivory, Damon, Shawn, and Marlon—are staples in American comedy. Keenen Ivory Wayans is the trailblazer who wrote and directed I’m Gonna Git You Sucka in 1988. He followed up with the hit sketch comedy series In Living Color in 1990. Siblings Shawn and Marlon continued the tradition with the hit WB sitcom The Wayans Bros. and fan-favorite comedies like Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood and White Chicks. One thing these films have in common is their parody of American films and lampooning of social issues of our times. Shawn and Marlon became titans of the genre with megahit Scary Movie (2000).
Scary Movie: Then and Now
The original Scary Movie parodied Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, and the TV drama Dawson’s Creek. There’s even a cameo of the now-late actor James Van Der Beek. It even threw in Halloween, the crime drama The Usual Suspects: Doofy (Dave Sheridan) walking down the street at the very end of the movie. Can’t forget The Shining. Scary Movie was a huge box-office success, given its notably small budget. It even outgrossed the original Scream (1996)—the very movie it was parodying.
Now, more than twenty-five years later, the brothers return with Scary Movie (2026). The title is actually a lampoon of the Hollywood trend “requeling” (portmanteau of reboot and sequel). It’s a movie that functions as both a continuation of an established franchise and a soft reboot of the IP. You know, like the Scream franchise and I Know What You Did Last Summer? Or, how 2018’s Halloween ignored the franchise’s convoluted sequels, acting as a direct follow-up to the 1978 original. Scary Movie parodies all three and then packs in over 30 movies, shows, and pop culture references. The brothers regained creative control of the franchise after a decade-long battle with the then-studio heads Bob and Harvey Weinstein. And they leave no stone unturned.
Plot & Parody: A Relentless Rollercoaster
With that said, directed by Michael Tiddes, Scary Movie lampoons the landscape of “elevated horror,” legacy sequels, and Gen-Z streamer culture, pushing the franchise’s signature raunchy, fast-paced slapstick to the absolute max. Teyana Taylor even has a show-stealing opening scene as a hilariously self-aware version of herself. Parodying the cold open of Scream VI, a film continuing the story of its new “core four.” Taylor beats up Ghostface, flexing that her “abs have abs” before knocking him out with her actual Golden Globe award.
Over twenty-five years after surviving Ghostface, Scary Movie’s core four—Cindy, Brenda, Shorty, and Ray—become the targets of a new masked killer in the fictional town of Woodsboro. To survive, the aging group must navigate a savage gauntlet of modern tropes parodying everything. No, seriously—I wasn’t cappin’ about “no stone.” Everything [Insert Shorty Meeks laugh here.]
Satire with Substance
To be clear, in this day and age, parodying horror films in an era when horror movies are actually going through a renaissance isn’t easy to pull off. The Gen-Z-centric, independent horror films Backrooms and Obsession definitively outperformed Disney’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu at the box office. Weapons won an Oscar. Black representation and high-concept genre expanding are more pronounced now—Get Out won an Oscar for it, too. Sinners won as well, four actually. But no stone—these three are all parodied in Scary Movie.
Shawn and Marlon Wayans use it all to satirize the self-seriousness of modern “elevated horror” while reclaiming their creative legacy. The siblings stick to their guns with unfiltered, early-2000s-style political incorrectness in this contemporary moment of almost arbitrary, unchecked cancel culture. Scary Movie argues that collective laughter and not taking yourself too seriously remain the definitive inoculation in a hyper-sensitive societal climate.
Everything: References, Cameos, and Cultural Critique
There’s a notable animated sequence that parodies the Netflix animated phenomenon KPop Demon Hunters (another Oscar Award winner). Removing Critical Race Theory from public education and making Kanye West’s “Slavery was a Choice” textbook required. ICE arrests an accidental white privilege complicit, transgendered liberal kid’s migrant workers. Yes, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ironically, he complains that he’s too lazy to do the work himself, not the unfair, racially profiled deportations of Latinos.
Everything. Saturday Night Live alumna Cheri Oteri reprises her role as reporter Gail Hailstorm, mocking how maturing women navigate modern internet journalism, digital media exploitation, and hyper-sexualized content creation—The Substance (yet another Oscar winner), even the Epstein Files. Millennial passengers on a train turn violent over being lectured by a hyper-political Gen-Z victim about using their proper pronouns to identify “she” is being stabbed to death. The subway car makes quick-cut references to Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Heart Eyes.
Everything. Longlegs, Smile, M3GAN, Terrifier 3, Nope, Wednesday, Ma, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), who was once eager to learn Black culture in Scary Movie 2, parodying Save the Last Dance, is now actively eager to learn how to be conservative, not sure if she could hug her sassy, Black-woman-stereotype-coded best friend Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) with the Octavia Spencer, “Ma” haircut. Cindy’s now a Halloween’s Laurie Strode-like mother, Republican gun nut, doomsday prepper. Officer Doofy Gilmore (Dave Sheridan); remember, the original Scary Movie ends in a parody of The Usual Suspects, revealing that Doofy was a Keyser Söze-like mastermind behind the killings. Scary Movie ties up that cliffhanger nicely.
Meta-Commentary on Black Representation
Ray Wilkins (Shawn Wayans) returns with the tragically closeted trope, in the church from Sinners, where they “pray” his gay away, mocking the viral 2014 “I’m delivered” church testimony by internet personality Andrew Caldwell. Not many realize how Black Sinners was; the car driven by Smoke and Stack is a 1915 C.R. Patterson & Sons Patterson-Greenfield. Its manufacturer was the first and only Black-owned automobile company in the United States. “Message!”
Scary Movie filters the sheep-like “Black, Black, Black, Black” representation crowd that rallies behind anything Black without fully understanding its depths and motives. Before entering the church, Ray plugs the vehicle into a “Woke Watts” EV charging station. “Message!” I think it was one of the film’s most high-brow jokes and intellectual flex. Despite its low-brow slapstick, Scary Movie demonstrates a keen awareness of the necessity, sophistication, and intentionality behind Coogler’s push for Black excellence in Sinners. Here in New York City, I was the only person in the theater to get that reference and immediately laughed out loud. Scary.
The Cameos, Supporting Cast, and Nostalgic Gags
Chris Elliott returns as the guy with the tiny right hand that he refers to as his “strong hand.” Fellow SNL alumna Heidi Gardner makes an appearance as a clueless FBI agent who allows local police to wrongfully mistake a Black man for Elliott’s elusive character, absurdly beating him beyond excessive force. Damon Wayans Jr. plays her Black partner. Kenan Thompson, also from SNL, satirizes the Antoine Fuqua-directed Michael Jackson biopic Michael with a faux trailer within the movie for “Jermaine.”
There’s a ton of Wayans in this film, including a frequent collaborator of the siblings, their sister, Kim Wayans, as a nurse credited as “Ratchett.” There’s also their nephew, Gregory Wayans-Benson Jr., in the film; he’s the typical politically detached, tragically assimilated Black Gen-Zer. Marlon’s character Shorty Meeks actually says in the film’s climactic meta-monologue that it’s like a “million” of us. And no Scary Movie is complete without cameos. This sixth installment features NBA Shaquille O’Neal, Anthony Anderson, and Carmen Electra. And Kai Cenat playing “Extreme Noodle?”
Every fan has their favorite cameo and their funniest bit from the franchise. Among mine is Cindy’s Save the Last Dance parody. Also, Lochlyn Munro’s hot-headed, aggressive jock character, Greg Philippe. He’s a riff on Ryan Phillippe’s intense, high-strung, hyper-masculine, and unhinged Brian from I Know What You Did Last Summer. After screaming “You want a piece of me?! Bring it on!” to a frustratingly elusive killer, he gets so caught up in his intense, blind adrenaline rush that he elbows his own friend out of the way, runs over, and finishes off his tirade by completely pulverizing Cindy with a WWE-style diving elbow drop. My point is that these unfiltered, nostalgia-fueled roasts of contemporary tropes make a return.
Why Scary Movie Still Matters
All this to say, this sixth installment of Scary Movie does not care about your delicate sensibilities. It pulls the chair from under “elevated horror” and performative capitalist sanctimony alike. In this day and age, that alone is worth a trip to the theatre.