Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A familiar-looking group of teenagers find themselves being stalked by a more-than-vaguely recognizable masked killer! As the victims begin to pile up and the laughs pile on, none of your favorite scary movies escape the razor-sharp satire of this outrageously funny parody!
Scary Movie is a broad, crude parody of late-90s slasher films — primarily Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer — that leans heavily on gross-out gags and pop-culture references over genuine wit. The plot is deliberately thin and derivative by design, serving only as a scaffold for jokes. Acting is mostly functional comedy mugging, with Anna Faris showing early promise but the ensemble varying wildly in quality. Cinematography is workmanlike, mimicking the slasher aesthetic without any real visual ambition. Novelty earns a modest bump as it arrived at a culturally ripe moment and had genuine comedic energy that distinguished it from lesser spoof fare, even if the form itself wasn't new. The ending is perfunctory, resolving nothing with much wit or surprise.