Keenen Ivory Wayans
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The army of writers were clearly using Some Like It Hot as a blueprint, so even when Kevin is a man on the prowl, he's pretending to be someone else.
Two such subplots are lifted from Some Like It Hot.
Nods to everything from Some Like It Hot to Soul Man are here in abundance, but with a tangled and pointless plot that redefines vapidity, they’re the gag writer’s equivalent of sprinkles on a doughnut hole, an empty treat for the cinematic bulimics in the audience.
Using the "Some Like It Hot" boilerplate, an army of writers reheat gender-bending slapstick with middling results.
Essentially a macho version of the Joe E. Brown character in "Some Like It Hot," he plays a swaggering, narcissistic football star who won't take "no" for an answer from blonde Marlon.
The Wayans Brothers' latest endeavor (Keenan is at the helm and all three brothers helped pen the script) borrows judiciously from just about every film that has ever featured cross dressing leading men, from Some Like It Hot all the way down to Tootsie, not to mention a generous nod to Eddie Murphy's classic SNL "white infiltration" skit.
Although the prologue has been spoofed numerous times since, most notably in 2000's " Scary Movie ," it has not lost its unblinkingly terse power.
Unknown writer Kevin Williamson waited for people to forget that horror was schlock and staleness and, when the time was write, wrote a parody of the genre called "Scary Movie", later changed to "Scream".
There are some good reasons why the name of Wes Craven's new movie was changed from "Scary Movie" to "Scream."
Now, after the Scream trilogy and its many imitations, that particular theme doesnt work so well.
If you have not seen "Scream," then there is no purpose in seeing "Scary Movie."
"Scary Movie" not only sends up the "Scream" franchise but also the whole Dimension horror catalog and beyond--including even "The Blair Witch Project."
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Directed by Jim Gillespie
influenced Scary Movie (2000)
Plot Characters
Coming across like a MAD Magazine movie satire, except much, much filthier, "Scary Movie" is almost a scene-for-scene parody of "Scream," with the exception of an over-long sequence spoofing "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and another part that resembles the opening moments of "Scream 2."
Basically, the plot pretty much crosses the original "Scream" with "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
Wayans’s burlesque of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer gets laughs the old-fashioned way, by waving the facts of anatomy in your face–or, for that matter, dripping, spurting and expelling them.
"Scary Movie" doesn't offer twists or variations on the plot of "Scream" or "I Know What You Did Last Summer."
Unfortunately, the rest of the film eschews such glossy self-criticism in favor of conventional parody that relies on Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer for narrative momentum rather than mocking them outright.
Another character, the one inspired by Sarah Michelle Gellar's character from "I Know What You Did Last Summer," is named Buffy, named after Gellar's own hit TV show.
However, as I prefer to do, you can chuck all those edgy jokes out the window (they’re not so edgy they’d dent the lawn) and take it as one man’s sublimely transgressive homage to French director George Franju’s iconic 1959 classic Eyes Without a Face.
Of course, the classic haunted house flick (or most probably its 1999 remake) is only one of the movies director Keenen Ivory Wayans and his seven writers (!) poke fun at: "What Lies Beneath", "Hannibal", "Charlie's Angels", "Titanic", "M:I-2", "Twister" and "Poltergeist" are some of the movie's other targets.
The likes of House on Haunted Hill, The Haunting and Poltergeist are given the Wayans treatment, and it says a lot that any one of the original movies spoofed here contains more genuine laughs than this lacklustre effort.
Direct movie spoofs make up the majority of the picture's running time, whether it be "Poltergeist," "The Haunting," "Hollow Man," "Charlie's Angels," "Hannibal," "Dude, Where's My Car?," or "Save the Last Dance."
They gleefully take broad stabs at thrillers ranging from "Poltergeist" (1982) to "What Lies Beneath" (2000) to "Hannibal" (2001), while at the same time making references to action films such as "Mission Impossible 2" (2000), "Charlie's Angels" (2000), and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000), just to mention a few.
…it culminates in an over-the-top final act that could have been ripped from a Scary Movie (2000 to present) comedic parody of the horror genre.
…la película termina cruzando la línea hacia la autoparodia involuntaria, evocando más el espíritu de Scary Movie que el de la obra original que pretendía satirizar los clichés del terror.
…a hollow and somewhat cynical product that would be too lame for even the Scary Movie franchise to make fun of…
…it’s somehow a parody, but far less broad than Scary Movie.
In Scream, Sidney was given space to express the pain of losing her mother in a scene with Billy, recreated in Scream 2 and then mocked in Scary Movie.
And now – in whatever we’re calling this decade – we come to the Scary Movie series, plus the abominable trio of spoofs from Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg: Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans.
Then came Scary Movie and the cinematic plague of Epic/Date Movies.
THE ARCTIC CIRCLE—In an unprecedented move, the Justice League of America and the Legion of Doom joined forces today to denounce the new film Superhero Movie, a feature-length spoof of comic-book movies written and directed by Craig Mazin and produced by Dimension Films, the studio behind the Scary Movie franchise.
Mazin, who also had a hand in writing the last two “Scary Movie” pictures, is man with a plan, but absent the slightest molecule of cleverness.
(And for good reason: The "Scary Movie" franchise, for example, has grossed close to a billion dollars worldwide.) "Superhero Movie," which opened yesterday without being screened for critics (how shocking!), may not have Peter Graves, but it does have his erstwhile "Airplane!"
Big question: Can this send-up of “Spider-Man” and other comic book adaptations, delivered by guys who worked on the “Naked Gun” and “Scary Movie” films, rise above the astonishing worthlessness of “Meet the Spartans” and “Date Movie”?
This Is the End (2013)
Directed by Evan Goldberg
influenced by Scary Movie (2000), Scary Movie 2 (2001)
Plot
With Rogen, along with James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Emma Watson, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Michael Cera and others all playing themselves -- or at least their perception of how Hollywood and the public view them and their personas -- the film also comes off as a big inside joke as mixed with a "Scary Movie" style spoof of disaster and horror films, complete with an extended sequence lifted from and inspired by a film that was made before many of those involved were born, "The Exorcist."
In some ways this is just a creepier, slightly funnier horror-pic spoof than anything in the recently resurrected “Scary Movie” franchise; along with its references to “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” the film spends a considerable amount of time elucidating prophecies in the book of Revelation, often with an impressively straight face.
If you like dick jokes, urine jokes, the "Scary Movie" series and Danny McBride turning his usual brand of sociopathic humor up to 11, this might be the movie for you.
Even worse, Rogen and Goldberg give up almost immediately once the crap hits the fan, killing off three-quarters of the cast as a lazy, throwaway afterthought and then sending the survivors indoors for a patience-testing, claustrophobic chamber piece that makes light of rape, includes the kicking-around of a severed head, and tosses in a demonic possession subplot for no reason other than to show how much better, believe it or not, the spoofing of an exorcism was done in 2001's " Scary Movie 2 ."None of the cast, save for perhaps the butt-kicking, ax-swinging Emma Watson (2012's " The Perks of Being a Wallflower ") in a cute but too-small part, take themselves seriously, and that is the true death knell of comedy.
Strangely, the film goes to great lengths to reference the Wayans Brothers’ “White Chicks” (2004).
And then there’s the pals’ recreation (in front of real people at a charity reception) of “White Chicks,” made up and dressed up like Shawn and Marlon Wayans in that black-men-as-white-women comedy, remembering to “think white thoughts” and starting conversations with the unsuspecting patrons of this gala with “I’m going to see Megyn Kelly give a TED Talk later.”
The script is an exercise in mashup perfection: just like with Shaun, where you can flip from horror to comedy and back again without missing a beat, here you can enjoy the film for the action sequences and then flip into laughing and then back into "Holy shit, they really are beating the crap out of each other, aren't they?" Make no mistake, they're sending up the genre (the spot-on poster parodies they've released are testament to that), but they're doing it not in the no holds barred way that something like Scary Movie does...instead it's a love letter to mindless action in the same way that Shaun was a big salute to all the zombie movies that came before it.
The most recent hit spoof was 2000’s Scary Movie (and its three sequels), and it seems like every other spoof that has come out was “written by two of the six writers of Scary Movie.”
No, this isn’t in the realm of the Scary Movie franchise or such abysmal spin offs as Date Movie (2006) or Epic Movie (2007).
Parody films often get sullied with a shoddy reputation due to formulaic films like the endless sequels to Scary Movie or woeful efforts like Disaster Movie which is as much fun as taking a baseball bat to your Joy Department.
One thing that distinguishes the movie from its American counterparts such as the "Scary Movie" series or its related spawn is an insistence on telling a story.
It's really merely the current crop of spoofs that are cruel, blunt, and simplistic, led by the Scary Movie franchise and now devolving into the line of quickie "(insert genre here) Movie," like Date Movie or Epic Movie .
They don't even look quite human, and I kept being reminded of nothing so much as Peter Lorre in the disguise that covers his fire-scarred visage in The Face Behind the Mask.
But as proven by every sweaty genre parody that popped up in Scary Movie’s wake, it takes genuine wit, talent, and inspiration to make a good movie out of something this dumb.
…growing up watching the original Naked Gun trilogy, Airplane and even Scary Movie on a loop…
The genre’s popularity waned in the 2010s following a glut of Scary Movie (2000) sequels…
The Austin Powers series petered out over two decades ago, and even the horrendous Scary Movies came to a merciful end.
We're talking more of the level of John Waters' early films like Pink Flamingos (1971).
While it's too bad the Wayans' flick doesn't match the comic invention and buckets of gore that make for a great horror-comedy -- such as Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn or Brian Yuzna's Society -- it's the summer's second-funniest poultry-free movie after Shanghai Noon.
Vampires Suck (2010)
Directed by Aaron Seltzer
influenced by I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), Scary Movie (2000)
Themes
…and Top Secret! to the putrid and barely tolerable Wayans brothers' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and the first two Scary Movies (which Friedberg and Seltzer co-wrote along with four other writers) to Friedberg and Seltzer's Epic Movie and Vampires Suck, films whose instantly forgettable titles signal a knowing level of unimportance.
Having lampooned the horror genre (Scary Movie), rom-coms (Date Movie) and even the film 300 (Meet the Spartans), the directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer turn their attentions to the Twilight saga with Vampires Suck.
They wrote the original Scary Movie (2000) and directed Date Movie (2006), Epic Movie (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008) and Disaster Movie (also 2008).
They also pasted together the wildly scattershot scripts for “Spy Hard” and “Scary Movie.”
Well, maybe it’s not fair to say I can’t stand spoof flicks now, more like I can’t stand spoof flicks associated with writer-directors Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg, save perhaps “Spy Hard” and the first “Scary Movie” (which I found hilarious on first viewing and now can’t seem to get into on subsequent viewings).
Vampires Suck exists in a mirthless void somewhere between the satiric lunacy of the genre standard-bearer, the Abraham/Zucker classic Flying High (1980), and the frustratingly uneven Scary Movie series, possessing none of the former's superb timing nor the latter's machine-gun delivery of hit/miss gags.
Writers Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox, and Katie Silberman try to revive the spoof genre that was all the rage more than a decade ago thanks to Scary Movie and Disaster Movie franchise.
It mostly escapes the failures of the silly “Scary Movie” franchises by recognizing that it is not enough to refer to something; you have to have something to say about it.
This is obviously his niche and there’s a cleverness that films like Scary Movie or Not Another Teen Movie lack.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Directed by Drew Goddard
influenced by Scary Movie (2000)
Themes Visuals
Such sorts of overall trends, not surprisingly, lead to the rise of parodies such as 2000's "Scary Movie" and its various sequels.
The Cabin in the Woods isn't merely another Scream exercise in self-awareness, or a Scary Movie spoof of the same.
It’s the showbiz savvy and the name-cast gloss that lifts this goof on horror cliche above the “Scary Movie” franchise, or “Tucker & Dale Vs.
Despite the overall comedic overtones, the horror scenes are played straightforward and not like a Scary Movie spoof, with enough gore and scares to satisfy genre fans even as the carpet is being pulled out from under them.
Certainly the self-awareness of Scream reawakened interest in the genre and opened the door for the flat-out comedy of Scary Movie.
It’s almost a retreat into norms that bring to mind humorous horror flicks like Scary Movie , zombie thrillers akin to Dawn of the Dead and over-produced shockers like The Shining .
Shannon Elizabeth follows her success as the sexy foreign exchange student in American Pie with another "glamour gal" performance, but this time she literally goes to pieces.
By the end, no fewer than nine not-so-great movies have been sent up, ranging from American Pie to The Usual Suspects.
It was just last year that I practically peed my pants with laughter during "American Pie," and this year's "Road Trip" was definitely worth the, well, trip.
Featuring scenes that make American Pie, There's Something About Mary, and Me, Myself and Irene seem almost tame, Scary Movie combines the raunchiness of '90s teen comedies with the single-movie spoof approach of Mel Brooks and the rapid-fire barrage of gags and jokes used in Airplane and The Naked Gun.
One great scene features Cindy's friend Buffy (Shannon Elizabeth, a.k.a. the naked foreign- exchange student in American Pie) stalked by the killer in a dark locker room.
Jam-packed with homages to key scenes from such recent pop culture phenomena as "The Matrix," "The Blair Witch Project," "American Pie," "Dawson's Creek," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and even the "Whassup!!" beer commercial, this horror spoof has all of the ingredients of a classic teen summer film.
There are also brief parodies of "The Matrix," "The Blair Witch Project" and "Usual Suspects," the last of which is funniest, though the "Blair Witch" thing comes in a close second -- a rarity for "Blair Witch" parodies, which have been abundant lately.
"Scary Movie" not only sends up the "Scream" franchise but also the whole Dimension horror catalog and beyond--including even "The Blair Witch Project."
A parody of "The Blair Witch Project" is expected.
Considering that it is a spoof, a number of recent films are also given dishonorable mention, including "The Exorcist," "The Usual Suspects," "The Matrix," and the often-parodied "The Blair Witch Project."
By and large, what we get is an almost shot-for-shot remake of "Scream" mixed with "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Scream 2" as well as potshots at "The Blair Witch Project", "The Sixth Sense" and "The Matrix".
Using the original Scream as its jumping-off point, Scary Movie mocks shocks from the likes of I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense.