| Scary Movie | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Keenen Ivory Wayans |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Francis Kenny |
| Edited by | Mark Helfrich |
| Music by | David Kitay |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Dimension Films[1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 88 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19 million[3] |
| Box office | $278 million[3] |
Scary Movie is a 2000 Americanslasherparody film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written byMarlon andShawn Wayans (who both also star), alongside Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman,Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. StarringJon Abrahams,Carmen Electra,Shannon Elizabeth,Anna Faris,Kurt Fuller,Regina Hall,Lochlyn Munro,Cheri Oteri, andDave Sheridan, it follows a group of teenagers who accidentally hit a man with their car, dump his body in a lake, and swear to secrecy. A year later, someone wearing a Ghostface mask and robe begins hunting them one by one.
Dimension Films, then a subsidiary label ofMiramax Films, releasedScary Movie in the United States on July 7, 2000. The film grossed $278 million worldwide on a $19 million budget and is the highest-grossing in the series. It was theninth-highest-grossing film of the year domestically in the United States.[3] The film is the first installment in the Scary Movie film series. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and later spawned five sequels, starting withScary Movie 2 in 2001.
On Halloween night, Drew Decker receives a threatening phone call while home alone. Chased outside by a masked killer, she is stripped to herbra andpanties before being stabbed in the breast, removing one of her siliconeimplants. Her father, who is distracted by receivingfellatio, accidentally hits her with his vehicle, and she looks at her murderer just before being fatally stabbed.[a]
Cindy Campbell meets with her boyfriend Bobby Prinze and her friends, Brenda Meeks, Ray Wilkins, Greg Phillippe, Buffy Gilmore, and Brenda's stoner brother Shorty. News teams, including reporter Gail Hailstorm, converge on the school due to Drew's murder. Gail seduces Buffy'sintellectually disabled brother, Special Officer Doofy, to elicit information. While in class, Cindy sees the killer watching her from outside before receiving an ominous note.[b] She then realizes Drew was murdered exactly one year after she and her friends accidentally killed a man by hitting him with a car and dumping his body in a lake. After football practice, Greg finds a photo of his small penis on his locker saying "I KNOW" on it. Believing Ray took the photo, he confronts him and their friends.
Cindy tells them about the note, insisting they contact the police, but Greg beats her instead, fearing imprisonment. At Buffy'sbeauty pageant that evening, the killer murders Greg in plain view, while the audience mistakes Buffy's pleas for help as part of herdramatic reading. Buffy eventually wins the pageant and forgets Greg. The killer attacks Cindy while she is home alone, but retreats when she contacts the police. Bobby arrives and is arrested after a cellphone, knife, and gloves fall out of his pocket. As Cindy spends the night at Buffy and Doofy's, she receives a call from the killer.
The following day, Bobby is released from jail. Buffy isbeheaded by the killer with acleaver. That night, Gail and her cameraman Kenny go to a makeout spot to film a murder on camera. After they catch the killer murdering teenager Heather, he chases them into the woods and murders Kenny. Gail later gives a snot-filled apology to Kenny's family.[c] Later that night, Ray and Brenda go to the movies, where Ray is stabbed through his ear in a bathroom stall through aglory hole.[d] The killer nearly murders Brenda, but angry movie patrons, weary of her obnoxious behavior in the theater, stab her to death to silence her forspoiling several films. Meanwhile, Cindy is having a house party, hoping for safety in numbers. Her friend Tina is killed while getting beer from the garage. During the party, Cindy and Bobby go upstairs and have sex. The killer gets stoned with Shorty and his friends in the basement, but accidentally kills all but Shorty.
After Cindy and Bobby have sex, the killer stabs Bobby and disappears. She gets a gun from a drawer and Bobby follows. Shorty comes up from the basement warning about the killer, but Bobby shoots him. Ray arrives on the scene, still alive, with avoice changer. Bobby and Ray confront Cindy in the kitchen, announcing they will only kill her and her father, and that they are merely copying the real killer. Bobby admits to being gay and Ray's lover, while Ray denies it. The plan backfires when Ray stabs and kills Bobby out of anger because his favorite show,The Wayans Bros., has been canceled. The real killer abruptly arrives, murdering Ray and fighting Cindy until she kicks him out a window.[e] However, the killer vanishes before the police arrive, to Cindy's dismay.
At the police station, Cindy and the sheriff discover that the killer was not the man accidentally killed by the teens last year. He was really Doofy, who was faking his disability and has escaped with Gail Hailstorm after removing his disguise.[f] The sheriff and Cindy find his discarded backpack with his mask and knife in the street, and Cindy begins screaming but is hit by a car.
Shawn Wayans conceived a movie that would parody 1990s teen-slasher movies,[4] and he along withMarlon Wayans, and writing partners Buddy Johnson and Phil Beauman wrote a script with the reported working title ofLast Summer I Screamed Because Halloween Fell on Friday the 13th. At the same time, screenwritersJason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (who created the 1996James Bond spoofSpy Hard) were working on an idea for a movie calledScream if I Know What You Did Last Halloween.Dimension Films, a subsidiary ofMiramax Films bought both, and gave the script to the Wayans brothers.[5] TheWriters Guild of America gave writing credits to both groups, infuriating the Wayans who argued that none of Friedberg and Seltzer’s work was used in the finished product.[6]
Anna Faris had graduated from theUniversity of Washington and planned to live and work in London, but decided instead to go toLos Angeles for a year. There she auditioned for the film and booked her first acting job.[7][8] Keenen had rejected many other actresses, and was willing to take the chance on Faris despite her lack of experience because of her instinctual performance. He said: "She had this natural innocence and was funny."[9]Jenny McCarthy andMelissa Joan Hart auditioned for the part of Drew Decker, beforeCarmen Electra was cast.[8]Aaliyah was offered the role of Brenda but declined out of respect for fellow R&B singerBrandy, feeling that theScary Movie character parodied Brandy's role inI Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998).[10]
The movie was filmed August 16, 1999, to October 18, 1999.[citation needed] Filming mostly took place inBritish Columbia,Canada.[11]
Much of the humor ofScary Movie relies upon specific references to other contemporary films.Roger Ebert remarked in his review that "to get your money's worth, you need to be familiar with the various teenage horror franchises."[12] The two films on which the script is most heavily based areScream (1996) andI Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) (both written byKevin Williamson), using the general narrative arcs of both films, and featuring comedic recreations of key scenes.[13] The backstory in which the teenagers are responsible for accidentally killing a man following a beauty pageant recalls the same plot point inI Know What You Did Last Summer.[12] Major references toScream include the identity of Ghostface and the murder of Drew Decker in the opening scene, a reference to the opening scene ofScream in which the same thing occurs to the character ofCasey Becker, played byDrew Barrymore.[12] Additionally, the characters ofScream andI Know What You Did Last Summer are mirrored in the film, and the title "Scary Movie" was originally the working title for the project that would eventually becomeScream.[13] At one point the title of this film was going to be "Scream If You Still Know What I Did Last Halloween".[14] Although the Ghostface mask and costume was a replica, the original costume from theScream series was used in the scene where Cindy notices the killer outside of the school.
Many scenes and jokes parody or reference other films outside the horror film genre. The fight between Cindy and the killer heavily mimicsThe Matrix, particularly its use ofbullet time.[12] The final scene, in which Doofy stops feigning his disability and drives away with Gail, is a takeoff of the final scene ofThe Usual Suspects.[15][16] When asked about her favorite horror movie, Drew answers "Kazaam" due toShaquille O'Neal's acting.[12] Cindy becomes aggressive and roars "Say my name!" during sex with Bobby, similar to the sex scene between Michelle and Jim inAmerican Pie.[16] The movie theater scene shows a screening ofShakespeare in Love and a trailer for a fictitious sequel toAmistad titledAmistad II with elements ofTitanic also appears in the movie theater scene.[14] When Gail and her cameraman are attacked by the killer, she partakes in a parody of the famous scene inThe Blair Witch Project where Hailstorm records an apology to her friends' parents.
The film also makes other pop culture references beyond the scope of film, such as the parodied version ofSarah Michelle Gellar's characterHelen Shivers inI Know What You Did Last Summer being namedBuffy, which is a reference to her character inBuffy the Vampire Slayer. Others include a brief references toDawson's Creek,Candid Camera,Big Momma's House,Candyman,Friday the 13th and a parody of theWhassup? ad campaign byBudweiser.[15][14]
The tagline for the movie's poster was "No Mercy. No Shame. No Sequel." WhenScary Movie 2 was released a year later, the tagline for the sequel was "We Lied."[17]
| Scary Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
| Released | July 4, 2000 |
| Recorded | 1999–2000 |
| Genre | Hip hop,alternative rock |
| Length | 55:15 |
| Label | TVT |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [19] |
The soundtrack toScary Movie was released on July 4, 2000, throughTVT Records and consists of a blend of hip hop and rock music.
Scary Movie was released onDVD andVHS on December 12, 2000, byDisney'sBuena Vista Home Entertainment (under the Dimension Home Video banner).[20] In 2007, it was released onBlu-ray.[21]
In late 2005, the Weinstein brothers left Disney-owned Miramax to formThe Weinstein Company, and took the Dimension Films label with them. Disney/Miramax retained ownership of the films previously released under the Dimension banner, with this including all of Dimension's releases between their 1992 foundation and September 2005.[22] Disney then sold off Dimension's former parent label Miramax to private equity firmFilmyard Holdings in 2010, and Qatari companybeIN purchased Miramax from them in 2016. In 2020,ViacomCBS (now known asParamount Skydance) bought a 49% stake in Miramax from beIN.[23] This deal gave Paramount the rights to Miramax's library and Dimension's pre-October 2005 library, and the rights to release future projects based on Dimension/Miramax properties such asScary Movie. Paramount later madeScary Movie available on their streaming serviceParamount+,[24] and reissued the film on Blu-ray in 2020.[25]
Scary Movie opened theatrically in the United States and Canada on July 7, 2000, on 1,912 screens, and debuted atnumber one at the US box office, grossing $42,346,669 during its opening weekend.[3] It went on to breakAir Force One's record for having the biggest opening weekend for any R-rated film.[26] Additionally,Scary Movie generated the second-highest opening weekend of 2000, behindMission: Impossible 2.[27] The film ultimately grossed $157,019,771 in the United States and Canada, surpassingGood Will Hunting as Miramax's highest-grossing film in that market.[28] It grossed $121,000,000 in other markets, for a worldwide gross of $278 million.[3]
Scary Movie received mixed reviews from critics. Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 51% based on 117 reviews, with an average score of 5.50/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Critics sayScary Movie overloads on crudity and grossness to get its laughs."[29] OnMetacritic, the film received a score of 48 based on 32 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[30] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[31]
Joe Leydon ofVariety said that the film was "unbounded by taste, inhibition or political correctness" and that "the outer limits of R-rated respectability are stretched, if not shredded". Leydon concluded the film is "practically guaranteed to make you laugh until you're ashamed of yourself".[15]Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, saying it "delivers the goods", calling the film a "raucous, satirical attack on slasher movies." However, Ebert was critical of the film for not being as innovative as other films, saying it lacked "the shocking impact ofAirplane!, which had the advantage of breaking new ground."[12]
Bob Longino ofThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution felt that the film's crude humor detracted from the film, saying thatScary Movie "dives so deep into tasteless humor that it's a wonder it landed an R rating instead of an NC-17."[32] Other reviewers, such asA.O. Scott ofThe New York Times, argued that the jokes were "annoying less for their vulgarity than for their tiredness." Scott remarked "Couch-bound pot smokers, prison sex, mannish female gym teachers, thoseWhassssup Budweiser commercials—hasn't it all been done to death?"[14]
Peter Howell ofThe Toronto Star wrote that the film "doesn't just push the gross-out envelope, it folds, spindles, mutilates and mails it to your mama." He adds, however, that "Scary Movie has a nasty side to it that negates much of the humour. Many jokes are just plain sexist, racist, homophobic, violent . . . and not funny. A scene where a woman is knocked to the ground by an angry man who then proceeds to brutally kick her is sickening to watch. The film's frequent use of profanity also seems gratuitous, even by these standards, but that may be beside the point. By the time you realize the four-letter word count is running high, the plot itself has become repetitious and forced."[33]
A sequel, titledScary Movie 2, was released in 2001.
Weinstein laughs:""We have our marketing campaign. 'Look — we lied!"'[dead link]
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Based onI Know What You Did Last Summer byLois Duncan | |
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