Franchise Fixations is a recurring column by Will Ashton that digs beneath the surface of today’s latest franchise films—unpacking what they add, subtract, or accidentally reveal about the ever-growing universes they inhabit. Sometimes it’s praise, sometimes it’s therapy. Always, it’s personal.
I wish I could say that my love of parodies started with Airplane!, Young Frankenstein, or even Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. However, if I am being truly honest with myself — and with you, dear reader — Scary Movie 3 is the movie that opened the door to my love of satirical cinema, for better or worse.
It was fifth grade, which is basically the best way to experience Scary Movie 3 in 4-D. All the kids in orchestra class were talking about a new film, and an outrageous one at that. When I inquired about the feature, I learned that it had a fairly innocuous title: Scary Movie 3. I wasn’t a horror buff then, but I certainly loved to laugh. Sure enough, the next time my parents drove me to Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, Family Video, or one of the other neighboring video plazas (man, do I miss those!), I knew which celeb-studded DVD cover I needed to find and grab.
How Scary Movie 3 Won Me Over
Scary Movie 3 has an understandably checkered history with fans. The Wayans brothers, who created and shepherded the first two features, were well-positioned to make a third (and early promotional posters prove it). But, alas, Harvey Weinstein predictably wanted to give them a mediocre-at-best offer for their hard work. Rightfully offended, the Wayans walked away, and David Zucker, one-third of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker (better known as ZAZ), as well as the filmmaker behind the first two Naked Gun films, took their place. Material developed for the Wayans’ version reportedly survived into the eventual film without them, while the brothers themselves were effectively pushed out of what had become, by no small margin, their most financially successful franchise.
Now, obviously, this is shitty. Really shitty. No two ways about it. And it’s easy to see why they’re miffed about the third Wayans-less feature and the two films that followed. Corporate greed and petty producer strife took a franchise from its original creators and commodified it into a safer, less provocative, more broadly accessible version of itself. And normally, I would be on the creators’ side, for all the obvious reasons. And in spirit, I am.
But here’s the thing: Scary Movie, and especially Scary Movie 2, aren’t sacred works. They are gaudy, mean-spirited, filled with gross and demeaning humor, and have aged about as well as milk in the desert sun.
The Unlikely Zucker-Wayans Sweet Spot
Even today, these early films have some good, inspired gags sprinkled throughout; the creators of In Living Color made household names of themselves and their extended family for a reason, and they know how to produce some funny stuff in short bursts. These films can produce a good chuckle in fits and starts. Nevertheless, with their outdated references, latent homophobia, intense hatred of women, raunchiness for shock factor over comedic value, and other offenses, they can be a real slog to sit through twenty-some-odd years later.
Scary Movie 3, on the other hand, blends some of their funny ideas with Zucker’s deft handling of physical slapstick humor, sharp deadpan delivery, a plethora of visual (and especially background) gags, and a general understanding of when to play things small and when to go big and broad. The result might be as close to a perfect marriage of styles as Scary Movie could hope for.
Now, of course, Scary Movie 3 is also a movie that has its fair share of overreliance on ‘00s-era references, outdated gags directed at women and minorities, and the sort of bits from Zucker’s wacky Rolodex that were increasingly becoming stale upon this movie’s release, let alone now. But for all its faults, it’s apparent, especially after watching the insufferable Scary Movie 2, just how refreshing it is to see a comedic bigwig like Zucker take the reins of this ultra-silly satire series.
Maybe take what I say with a small grain of salt, since I have a lot of built-in nostalgia for Scary Movie 3 and have seen it more than some distant relatives, but it’s pretty much night and day. While the circumstances that led to the changing of the guard were obviously disgusting and depressing, they ultimately led to what I would passionately describe as the better, funnier movie, and what’ll always remain the pinnacle of this franchise, if a franchise like this truly has one…
What Happened After Scary Movie 3
I believe this balance of Wayans and Zucker is why Scary Movie 3 works so well, though. Once Zucker gained full control of Scary Movie 4, his influence didn’t produce a sequel significantly better than the first two features. And Scary Movie 5, which Zucker produced years later and which effectively killed the Weinstein-led franchise for good, was a real nadir. Left to his own devices, Zucker couldn’t make Scary Movie into a particularly robust or creatively rewarding series, either. However, this unintentional mishmash collaboration (of sorts) paved the way for the series’ singular success.
Thus, when it was announced that the Wayans were taking Scary Movie back with a brand-new sequel, I was happy for them, but not especially thrilled. Sure, I was intrigued by the prospect of a new parody film on the silver screen. But I didn’t have much faith in the Wayans revitalizing it.
Sure, the Wayans were the parents of the Scary Movie franchise. But much like a teenager who discovers themselves in college, the series didn’t really flourish until it got a little older and moved away from home. Creatively, the reintroduction of the Wayans felt like the series moving back in with its parents, trying to figure out what to do next while listlessly hanging around the same walls where it grew up.
The Wayans Come Home
Which might explain why Scary Movie (2026), for all its built-up bluster, is not only a massive disappointment but a turgid nadir for a franchise that never reached great creative heights to begin with. Most Scary Movies become dated soon after they screen in theaters; the 2026 Scary Movie, meanwhile, felt dated before it even reached the multiplex. This frustratingly toothless, lackluster legacyquel is more creatively bankrupt and shallower than any of the tired horror sequels, prequels, and reboots that it wants to satirize.
I doubt many die-hard Scary Movie fans will agree with me on this one, but to hell with it. It must be dutifully said: Where’s David Zucker when you need him? This years-later sequel makes Scary Movie 5 look like 3!
I don’t want to write an extensive takedown (though you can listen to more of my thoughts during our podcast review on TFGM), so I should note a few positives upfront. Because, for as much as I disliked this film, there are still some things that I liked a fair bit! The standout, quite undoubtedly, is newcomer Olivia Rose Keegan, who plays Sara Campbell, the teenage daughter of Anna Faris’ franchise fixture Cindy Campbell, and does an impressive job channeling Faris’ mannerisms, cadence, and facial expressions.
While she gets less to do as the feature goes along, she never loses her gusto. I would be very happy to see her come back for any future installments, should they keep making these sardonic stinkers. Alas, Scary Movie (2026) doesn’t have much time or patience for anyone outside the Wayans family, especially Marlon.
Fine, Here Are the Nice Things
Also worth noting is the self-aware, franchise-meta climax, which doesn’t save the movie but does provide a select few of the laughs in this otherwise dire film. There are a fair share of annoying things about this climax, too, but we’ll get to those in due time. Furthermore, there is a visual gag involving cunnilingus that made me chuckle, and it’s nice to see Faris and Regina Hall back in action. They are quite lovely together! I missed them!
Alright, that’s about all the nice things I have to say about Scary Movie (2026). Let’s get into the trash talkin’.
While this new Scary Movie might have more conviction — and certainly a higher budget — than any of the films of this ilk from back in the day, there’s an unmistakable whiff of the old Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer would-be romps. These are features such as Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, and Vampires Suck. The numnuts who made these movies coasted off a writing credit from the original Scary Movie for years, and they were able to get a few shitty pop culture parodies into theaters before YouTube made whatever they were trying to achieve artistically obsolete.
Even when they churned out movies at a brisk rate, these two were always going to lag behind anyone with a YouTube channel who could upload a parody within hours — or less — from a basement computer. It may not have been a better world in the years that followed, but it had much less of these two hacks.
The Friedberg-Seltzer Problem Returns
But Scary Movie (2026) seems to follow a similar formula to these long-gone ‘00s parodies. It’s not really interested in tackling the horror genre and making fun of familiar, oft-repeated tropes, even though we have gotten a glut of horror films since any of the previous Scary Movies were released. Nor does it seem particularly interested in recreating the looks or styles of these movies.
Instead, it settles for characters wearing what amount to Halloween costumes from the movies they’re supposed to be lampooning. It’s name-checking over investigating, and the writers are basically making hacky Twitter jokes rather than doing anything that directly pokes fun at films like the recent Scream sequels, Sinners, Get Out, the newest Halloween movies, or Ma, all of which are meant to be ridiculed in some fashion or another throughout the proceedings.
The only times director Michael Tiddes, a frequent Marlon Wayans collaborator, oddly makes any effort to mimic the style of a film he’s parodying are the random bits around the margins of the movie meant to take the piss out of Longlegs. These scenes, which reintroduce Chris Elliott’s Hanson from Scary Movie 2 as a variation of Nicolas Cage’s titular horror villain, feel like leftovers from an earlier draft. They’re shoehorned into the movie like an SNL digital short that didn’t make it to air and somehow got spliced into the feature instead.
At Least Longlegs Looks Like Longlegs
Yet these scenes, while not funny, are refreshing. They actually feel like the filmmakers are making a cinematic effort. Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2, directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, who holds a writing credit but doesn’t come back to helm this installment, made at least some effort to recreate the stylings of Wes Craven’s Scream and 1999’s The Haunting, respectively. Likewise, Scary Movie 3 is clearly aiming to poke fun at M. Night Shyamalan’s visual style throughout. And Scary Movie 4 isn’t effective at much, but it at least makes an appreciable effort to resemble the movies it parodies, like War of the Worlds, Saw, The Grudge, and The Village.
But Tiddes, about 85% of the time, makes a movie that looks no different than, say, a filmed sketch for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Like too many movies today, it’s flatly lit and textureless. It’s shot for coverage, with little room for any real cinematic flourish. Everything is, in essence, there to serve the jokes, which would be more excusable if the film were more sincerely, authentically funny. But, alas, that isn’t the case.
Maybe I’ve spent nearly 2,000 words avoiding the inevitable, but for as much as people like to nitpick a comedy for any number of reasons, it ultimately comes down to one thing: Is it funny? The answer, as you can probably guess by now, is a big, resounding no.
Offensive Isn’t a Punchline
The marketing for Scary Movie (2026), from David Ellison’s Paramount, leaned heavily on the idea that the movie would be an “equal-opportunity offender” arriving to “cancel the cancel culture,” rather than simply selling us on how funny the damn thing was. That is, naturally, a pretty telltale sign. It’s easy bait for the anti-woke crowd. But in Trump 2.0, who are we really fooling? The folks calling foul are the ones running the house.
This is all just a pandering effort to throw a dirty rug over a corroded hole in the floor. It’s an effort to sell this movie as something “provocative” and “boundary-pushing,” while promising a return to the less culturally sensitive R-rated comedies that were more prevalent two or three decades ago.
So what if Scary Movie is offensive? Shows like South Park (also under Paramount) and podcasts like Cum Town pride themselves on offensive humor, but they have the goods to back it up. It’s not enough to be offensive. Anyone can go on The Site Formerly Known as Twitter to see offensive jokes all day. Nobody needs to go to a movie theater for that. People want something funny.
And that’s exactly where Scary Movie falls short. Its jokes range from hacky to tacky, referential to self-referential, loud to crass, with the obligatory pile of drug humor tossed in, and nearly all of it feels tired. For as much as the marketing, and even the movie itself, bolsters this film as a proud homecoming for its creators, Scary Movie has surprisingly little to say, either comedically or about the genre it supposedly exists to skewer.
Twenty Years of Horror, Almost Nothing to Say
This movie is more comfortable being a safe space for the Wayans brothers to return to their 20-year-old schtick than it is actually exploring anything about how horror has changed or what has become of the genre, as it grows increasingly obsessed with Big Themes and Even More Sequels. It’s just repeating a lot of the old jokes, redoing a lot of the now-boring bits, and hoping that people have enough nostalgia for the franchise as a brand to appreciate it.
That would be frustrating in its own right, but then the climax comes, and the film actually starts to become something a little more meta and textured. The characters start directly commenting on the franchise, the loss of the Wayans, and how they want to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. It’s mostly lip service, but it’s at least something! And it’s among the precious few times that Scary Movie (2026) actually opts to tell some real jokes. Some of which aren’t half-bad.
But then, as is maybe to be expected, it comes time to poo-poo the Scary Movies that weren’t their children.
And Then They Come for Scary Movie 3
Having characters, including surprise celebrity cameos, forcibly apologize for their (largely contractual) involvement in Scary Movie 3, in particular, already reeks a bit of Ryan Reynolds making the 15,000th joke at the expense of Green Lantern in Deadpool & Wolverine. But this movie having the gall to act all high-and-mighty over Scary Movie 3, in particular, is akin to Kwame Brown smack-talking Kevin Durant on Twitter.
For a finale built around self-awareness, the whole thing becomes embarrassingly self-infatuated. I know this is Scary Movie 3 we are talking about, but imagine if Star Trek Generations wanted to boast about being better than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That’s the gulf in quality here, which says less about 3 than it does about how horrendous 6 is.
I know we are talking about Scary Movie here. However, with a film this aggressively empty, it’s actually borderline insulting to have the Wayans come in and act all proud and smug. They don’t need to prove that this franchise was theirs all along, but they do need to make an effort to suggest why Scary Movie needed to return. And that’s where this film perpetually falls short.
That’s also why the movie can randomly detour into “parodying” — i.e., referencing — KPop Demon Hunters. It lacks specificity. It’s shooting fish in a barrel, hoping anything might get a rise out of the moviegoers still watching. Frankly, that’s just embarrassing and sad. It’s hard to watch.
Spoof Movies Aren’t Dead. This One Just Stinks.
With last year’s The Naked Gun reboot, there was proof that there is a market and great potential for silly, self-reflexive comedy films to shine in multiplexes. That movie’s existence only makes Scary Movie look worse by comparison. You can do something smart, interesting, insightful, and, yes, even provocative in the spoof genre today. And you could do it with Scary Movie, especially.
But that would require the Wayans to actually take a close look at anything that’s not their own self-aggrandizing past. After all, you have to be present to comment on the present. Sadly, Scary Movie is too busy looking backward to notice much of anything happening around it.
This Scary Movie is a joke, alright. It’s just a shame nobody’s laughing.
