For this bonus episode of Thank God for Movies, Jon Negroni and Will Ashton reunite to review the new Scary Movie! It’s the long-awaited return of the spoof franchise that helped define early-2000s parody comedy, of course. With the Wayans brothers back, Anna Faris returning as Cindy Campbell, Regina Hall back as Brenda Meeks, and a whole new batch of horror movies to reference, the question is simple. Does Scary Movie (2026) revive the franchise, or just remind us why this kind of comedy disappeared?
Jon and Will dig into why the movie’s “no safe spaces” marketing feels more like a hollow grift than an actual comic philosophy, how its jokes stack up against the earlier Scary Movie films, and why Scary Movie 3 might still be the franchise’s high point. We also talk about the difference between real parody and simply naming recent movies, from Scream (2022), Halloween, M3GAN, Longlegs, The Substance, Get Out, Weapons, Sinners, Nosferatu, and KPop Demon Hunters to the missed opportunity of satirizing elevated horror, A24 dread, and modern “requel” culture.
SHOW NOTES:
- 00:00:00 – Intro: New movies on our radar
- 00:11:20 – Review: Scary Movie (2026)
