The Latest ‘Scary Movie’ Refuses to Go for the Jugular

To paraphrase Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!: looks like the Wayans brothers picked the wrong week to release Scary Movie. Or, at least, the timing could have been better. In theory, the return of the beloved spoof-horror franchise syncs nicely with a moment when youthful, independently-minded genre directors are breaking containment and possibly shifting industrial paradigms. When the original Scary Movie debuted in July 2000, its makers knew very well what their target audience had done (and seen) last summer, and duly included allusions to The Blair Witch Project alongside a barrage of gags skewering Scream.