Scary Movie 6 review – Un-PC comedy is back in latest woke-bashing spoof | Films | Entertainment

The Scary Movie franchise kicked off at the turn of the century with the Wayans brothers helming the first two of their critically panned horror film parodies. Yet despite turning off the critics, the spoof series was a box office hit with audiences. After the Weinsteins dropped the siblings, they continued the sequel train led by Anna Faris’ Cindy Campbell and Regina Hall’s Brenda Meeks for the third and fourth outings directed by Airplane! and Naked Gun parody movie king David Zucker. Yet by the time 2013’s Scary Movie 5 landed, none of the original cast returned. Now, over a decade later and the Wayans brothers are back with Faris and Hall for the first time since the second film in Scary Movie 6, aka Scary MoVIe aka Scary Movie (2026).

This soft reboot is very much a spiritual successor to the first two Scary Movie films, bringing back Marlon Wayans’ weed-gulping Shorty Meeks and Shawn Wayans’ not very well closeted Ray Wilkins. They’re joined by supporting cast members not seen since the 2000 original, including Jon Abrahams’ Bobby Prinze, Lochlyn Munro’s Greg Phillippe, Cheri Oteri’s Gail Hailstorm and Dave Sheridan’s Officer Doofy. And who could forget fan-favourite Hanson, Chris Elliott’s creepy butler with a smaller deformed ‘strong hand’, who parodies Nick Cage’s Longlegs this time around.

Having recently rewatched the first two movies, we can confirm that Scary Movie 6 is a nostalgic return to a mix of painful teenage boy-level crudity and politically incorrect comedy. After all, this is the first Scary Movie in the post-woke era, and Wayans brothers take no bones about taking a leaf out of South Park’s book and making fun of everyone and everything, particularly themselves and African-American culture.

With a decade-long gap since the last Scary Movie, the latest instalment had a plethora of horror movies to parody, but sadly, this one doesn’t take full advantage. Much of the film is a series of loosely connected sketches and a lot of time is wasted not diving into the multiple possible film references but meandering in mid-level meta. Jokes are hit and miss with the occasional belly laugh being followed by bits totally bombing with the audience. Over all, it’s mostly pretty rubbish, juvenile and filthy with the occasional moment of comic gold, just like the other Scary Movies. Yet if the box office is there again you can certainly expect Scary MoVIe to be followed by Scary MoVIIe and Scary MoVIIIe.

Scary Movie 6 is out in cinemas on Friday.