Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour Scary Movie About this episode The horror comedy franchise Scary Movie is back in theaters with a new movie. But does this legacy sequel that parodies other legacy sequels have anything new to say? Helmed by the Wayans Brothers, it lampoons horror tropes new and old amid a flurry of jokes and references, and brings back familiar faces like Anna Faris and Regina Hall. It also introduces a new generation to face the dreaded Ghostface.
Do you want to hear about more legacy sequels? Check out these episodes:
‘Scream 7’ takes a weak stab at continuing the franchise https://www.npr.org/2026/02/27/nx-s1-5729142/scream-7-takes-a-weak-stab-at-continuing-the-franchise
'I Know What You Did Last Summer' gets hooked on nostalgia https://www.npr.org/2025/07/22/1256040801/i-know-what-you-did-last-summer-gets-hooked-on-nostalgia
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:28 Stephen Thompson? It's been more than 25 years since Scary Movie showed up to lampoon horror movie tropes. Since then, it's been sequelized, passed from creator to creator, and now rebooted as a legacy sequel, led by the Wayans brothers, who started it all. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about Scary Movie on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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2:20 Stephen Thompson? Joining me today is NPR producer J.C. Howard. Hey, J.C. Hello, hello. Also with us is Ronald Young, Jr. He's the host of the Film and Television Review podcast, Leaving the Theater. Hey, Ronald.
2:30 Speaker 05 Hello, Stephen.
2:31 Stephen Thompson? Also with us is freelance music and culture journalist, Rihanna Cruz. Hey, Rihanna.
2:35 Speaker 06 What's up?
2:37 Stephen Thompson? Oh, my God. There is a what's up joke in this movie. Yeah, there is. Ripped from the cultural headlines.
2:42 Speaker 05 So relevant. It's astonishingly relevant.
2:48 Stephen Thompson? So the original Scary Movie came out in 2000 as a parody of horror franchises like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Since then, Scary Movie has followed a trajectory familiar to fans of the movies it was originally spoofing. It got sequels, then it got passed to different directors and writers, and then it fizzled out entirely. Now Scary Movie is getting a reboot slash legacy sequel, which is itself a parody of other reboots slash legacy sequels. The Wayans brothers are back on board. Many, many Wayanses pop up in the cast, led by Marlon and Sean. Other familiar faces return as well, including
3:29 Stephen Thompson? Anna Faris and Regina Hall, while a new generation turns up to face the return of the dreaded ghost face. It's in theaters now. Rihanna Cruz, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of Scary Movie?
3:40 Speaker 06 All right. I'll put it simply. Is it a good movie? Debatable.
3:44 Stephen Thompson? That's what we're here to do, Riyan.
3:46 Speaker 06 Yeah, I know.
3:48 Speaker 05 Why don't you tell us?
3:49 Speaker 06 My bad, my bad. Do we expect any Scary Movie to be a good movie, though? I would say no. And I think because of that, the bar was on the floor, and I had fun. You know, I love the Scary Movie franchise personally. I love parody movies. I watch all the Scary Movies so frequently, like even Four and Five, which are generationally terrible and have pretty much only boner jokes. Like, I love them. They make me laugh. This movie, I was entertained. I laughed a lot. Most I could ask for. It's bloated. Not everything lands. I think there's a lot of dated jokes in it that feel like they were made six years to a decade ago at best.
4:35 Speaker 06 Between the the doofy character, which should have been left in the early 2000s, if at all. There's some transphobia here that I don't really get down with, but there is a space for this kind of movie and I'm happy to see it back. And I also am like a Wayans apologists. Like I watch everything they do and they make me laugh.
4:57 Stephen Thompson? I mean, look, man, I rocked with In Living Color.
4:59 Speaker 04 Sure.
4:59 Stephen Thompson? In the early 90s. I watched the hell out of that show and did every joke land then? No, it did not.
5:05 Speaker 05 But the ones that do really do.
5:07 Stephen Thompson? The ones that do do.
5:08 Speaker 06 Right. Like I I grew up on that. You know, my dad watched that all the time and I watched that with my dad when I was like.
5:13 Stephen Thompson? Oh, Stephen, yes, you, like my father, also watched that.
5:18 Speaker 06 Yeah, I don't know. It made me laugh. I think the bar is truly on the floor and it stepped over the bar. You know, I laughed more than I thought I would.
5:29 Stephen Thompson? Okay. Thank you, Rihanna. J C Howard, how about you?
5:32 Speaker 04 This is decidedly a dumb movie. But you already knew that. So what I'll say is this, if you're looking for likeable characters, some smart and often biting satire, tasteful jokes, a tight plot, you're at the wrong movie.
5:51 Stephen Thompson? I mean.
5:52 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:53 Speaker 05 Stop setting me up like this, J C. Stop it.
5:55 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is not what you're getting.
5:57 Stephen Thompson? Once you alluded to kind of subtlety, I was like, okay, J C's doing a bit.
6:01 Speaker 04 That is not what this movie is, even in the least bit. This was written largely by the Wayans Brothers. So the bottom line is, like Rihanna, if you like the things that they do, you will like this. If you don't, then you won't. And for me, I will be honest, it had some nostalgia appeal. I was in middle school or high school, somewhere in between there, when the first two scary movies came out, which were the ones that had the Wayans Brothers involved with them. And at that time, the humor was expressly for me. A middle school, high school boy, the sex jokes, the weed jokes, the stereotypes, the latent homophobia, they all spoke to like this middle schooler in me.
6:45 Speaker 04 There's a chance to really reinvent and to do something new with with that reminds us of the original, but brings a certain growth and maturity. And they successfully avoided that growth at all costs. The humor is there. It's not for me anymore. That same humor that I laughed at when I was, you know, 12, 13, 14. 15, 16, that humor isn't for me, but they delivered what they promised. And there were, that said, some things that did work for me. There was a lot of meta jokes about the franchise itself. There was commentary and references to crypto and Twitch streaming and EV charging infrastructure. And without saying too much, there was a little bit of K-pop in there that was incredibly delightful to me.
7:29 Speaker 04 The thing is, that stuff accounts for maybe a third of the movie. You know, the rest is the same five or six jokes from 20 years ago. You know, like I said, if you like it, then you'll love it. How about you, Ronald?
7:40 Speaker 05 Okay, so to continue JC's point, in this order, Scary Movie 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, these were my ages when they came out. 16, 17, 19, 22, 29. And I walk into Scary Movie at 42. So I feel like what I absolutely thought this movie was about to be was what it kind of avoided. It stepped up to the line and stepped back, which was Gen X and elder millennials dealing with living in a Gen Z world now. Which was, I thought was going to be very fun and funny. They tap it a few times, Anna Faris shows up, Regina Hall shows up, they are very funny. I'm reminded that they are good at this.
8:25 Speaker 05 The Wayans brothers show up, I'm reminded that they are good at this. And then they just throw wall-to-wall references at us from the beginning to end. Jokes that are coming so fast, I can't even laugh at them because I'm trying to read the screen and it's clicking away from it. 16-year-old Ronald probably would have watched this and enjoyed it. But 42-year-old Ronald wants to know that the Wayans is are also growing up with me. And there were a few times in which they're making commentary about race, about gender, about queerness. And I want to know that what they actually think of these things. And I'm not actually getting that. I'm getting just very sophomore jokes. So it was okay, but it could have been good. Stephen, this could have been a great film and they just didn't want to do it.
9:09 Speaker 04 All the ingredients were there.
9:11 Stephen Thompson? I'm really glad, Ronald, that you made that last point about kind of the absence of point of view.
9:18 Speaker 05 Yes.
9:18 Stephen Thompson? That comes through in a lot of these references. I mean, my issue with these movies in general, and with a lot of kind of post Naked Gun spoof franchises, of which this is one of many, one of my biggest issues with them is that they tend to give you references in lieu of jokes.
9:36 Speaker 05 Yes, Stephen.
9:36 Stephen Thompson? And there's, and there's a bit here, at one point, there's like a whole bit where it's like, the one character has like a drug stash, and oh no, we gave the drug stash to the kids for Halloween. And then, and then it's like, all the kids are on drugs, ha, ha, ha. And I'm like, okay, well, here's where you're gonna get your weapons reference. Right, yeah, yeah. And the kids are running around like the kids in Weapons, and one of them says, six, seven. And that's the joke.
9:59 Speaker 06 I laughed, Stephen.
10:01 Stephen Thompson? Rihanna, God bless you. I'm so glad.
10:03 Speaker 06 I laughed.
10:04 Stephen Thompson? I did not.
10:05 Speaker 05 I'm laughing at Stephen saying six, seven. I'm not laughing at the reference.
10:11 Stephen Thompson? Yeah. And so, so to me, so much of it was just like, oh, here's where they're gonna do the parody of this. Here's where, oh, that church looks like the church in Sinners. Here's where, here we go. And so to me, I wanted, I wanted more jokes. Where this film worked for me somewhat, I mean, naturally, this is going to be a meta property. Like, meta is in this film's bones. This is a parody of a meta satire. Of course, you're gonna have opportunities to kind of play around with the long and winding road that got this franchise to this point. And some of the jokes that they're able to work in about that did work for me. There were a couple of kind of fun running jokes that were referencing horror movie tropes. There's a pretty, I thought, pretty funny bit where
10:56 Stephen Thompson? the love interest, who is very, very heavily telegraphed to be the killer. I thought some of that stuff was pretty funny. But to me, getting back to what Ronald said, I just thought so many of the jokes were so toothless. There's this vibe that runs through it, and it runs through the film, it runs through the marketing of the film, that's very like, they're back in cancel culture, and better watch out. But then it doesn't have anything to say.
11:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:23 Stephen Thompson? Rihanna alluded to kind of some transphobia and I definitely got transphobic vibes off of it, but it mostly is just like, here's a trans character.
11:32 Speaker 05 Oh.
11:33 Speaker 06 Right. And that's the joke. Like, that's the comedy that this person exists, which is kind of the only place in the movie where I was like, ah, I don't really know about that.
11:43 Speaker 05 I agree.
11:43 Stephen Thompson? And obviously, like, I don't want it to come from a point of view that is worse or that is actively hostile, but it's, it's just doesn't have anything to say. And so there's like a scene set in a subway that's full of kind of these commentaries on like Karens and, and stuff like that. And again, that just feels so dated.
12:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
12:02 Stephen Thompson? To me, this franchise and this film just don't really land for me. Like, and some of this, I think, is generational. The original scary movie came out when I was in my mid to late twenties and I grew up on Airplane and The Naked Gun and Hot Shots Part Deux, you know, like the, the kind of, that kind of original Zucker era of spoofs. You know, the David Zucker famously kind of took over this franchise for a while and piloted it into the ground.
12:31 Speaker 05 Pun intended.
12:32 Stephen Thompson? Yes, exactly. For me, like, this film, if you are notionally open to this franchise, if you have enjoyed these movies, either have a communal experience in the theater with lots and lots of other people, or you either watch it at two o'clock in the afternoon or two o'clock in the morning in a state of mind to enjoy it.
12:52 Speaker 06 Yeah.
12:53 Speaker 05 Ah, I get what you're saying.
12:57 Speaker 04 A shorty state of mind, if you will. Yeah.
12:59 Stephen Thompson? I went in with as open a mind as possible. I really, really, really came in ready to laugh and I only chuckled lightly.
13:06 Speaker 06 That's, I was yucking it up in there. I gotta be honest. I was having a good time.
13:11 Stephen Thompson? I wish I'd seen this with you.
13:13 Speaker 06 I know. Yeah. I, I was having a really good time.
13:15 Speaker 05 I wish I'd been in that state of mind, that two A of state of mind. Well, actually, there's something that, there's one thing I wanted to point out about the transphobia, and I will also include racism that's in this film. There's a scene in this film in which there's some commentary about police brutality. And I feel like what I Got from that was again, not a perspective, but more like a pointing to it-ness.
13:37 Speaker 06 Yeah.
13:38 Speaker 05 Rihanna, you just said that. Like when you said, they said, here's a trans person, isn't this hilarious? That's kind of like the biggest issue that I have here is to say, if you're gonna make the joke, either make the joke and say it with your chest, or don't mention it at all.
13:53 Speaker 06 Right.
13:54 Speaker 05 Because it's like, you're not making the joke. Now you're just referencing it as funny, which just makes me say like, I need to know what you think about this. So that I know like, are you being smart? Are you writing something? Or are you just confused at the prospect? And it seems like it's the latter.
14:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:08 Speaker 06 Hmm. I can't believe I'm on here as like a scary movie defender, but what I will say.
14:13 Speaker 05 I love it.
14:14 Speaker 06 What I will say is like, do you come to these movies for perspective? Cause I I've rewatched all of them recently, you know, and granted, like the third scary movie, which is one of the Zucker movies. And it's the one where they parody signs. Like, that's my favorite scary movie. Cause I I think it's like top to bottom jokes that make me laugh. But like, it reminds me a lot of my favorite movie, which is Austin Powers' Goldmember. You know, like this is the vibe that I'm going for, right?
14:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
14:40 Speaker 06 But when I watch all the movies, I don't know, I'm not really looking for anything beyond jokes that make me chuckle. You know, it's the same type of humor as something like Family Guy or American Dad, like the Seth MacFarlane type of comedy where it's like, you're making a reference to a thing that I know and that's making me laugh, cause I could put the pieces together. And that's as much as I'm expecting, you know, I'm not really going into a Wayans movie, expecting them to comment on the state of the world. I don't know, maybe it's a generational thing.
15:09 Speaker 05 Well, let me just say one thing. I, okay, you're right. However, I think that's a problem. I think the fact that they are doing that, I take issue with. So I feel like if you are going to do parody and do that, and you don't have a perspective, then you're absolutely right. We end up walking into a movie, just being like, oh, we're just supposed to laugh at this, even though we walk back outside. And things feel just a little bit more tense than that. That's all I'm saying about parody and comedy. And I don't think you're wrong, because that's exactly, I feel like now I have to switch my brain to say I'm walking into a parody, that's not gonna have a real much of a perspective.
15:41 Speaker 04 I I think I have to kind of. Come down in between the two of you in a lot of ways. And I think in typical JC fashion, I'll offer one of the most generous reads of this movie.
15:51 Stephen Thompson? God bless, man. I appreciate you so much.
15:54 Speaker 04 It is parody. It is not as much satire as it should be. The movie being what it is, I think, is why some of the meta jokes worked for me. We've kind of talked about this a little bit, but the original movie was produced by Miramax, which at the time was run by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob Weinstein. And Marlon Wayans has talked about how, in a sense, they lost this franchise to the Weinsteins, who made those other three sequels without the Wayans. And so I feel like a lot of the jokes about Anna and Regina doing some of those sequels and some of the meta commentary about Hollywood. I feel like, for them, this was their kind of way to process everything that happened to them with this franchise.
16:40 Speaker 04 This was Marlon's way, one of Marlon's ways in real life, processing acceptance, his own actual acceptance of his transgender child. And like, in some ways, it does work, like some of them land and some of them don't. Because in some ways, they are, I think they are doing something deeper. They are examining their own kind of feelings about these things, but not actually telling us exactly how they feel. They're just, they're processing it out, out loud in front of us. And I can see this movie in the shadow of those interviews. I can see this movie in the context of those interviews. And I see that something deeper. However, none of it was there on the screen. So like, you know, how much credit does this movie? Yeah, exactly.
17:21 Stephen Thompson? I gotta review what's on the screen.
17:23 Speaker 04 Which is why I don't, I don't defend this movie from that perspective. I just like, this is my own, is my own therapy. This is my way of processing it.
17:30 Stephen Thompson? I appreciate it. I love it. I am totally here for it. That is a very generous read, and I will try to think about the movie through that lens. I think that's really useful. I will say I found, I did find so much of what they were actually parodying to be some of the most obvious stuff and some of the most dated stuff. The fact that they're still primarily parodying Scream.
17:52 Speaker 06 The 2022 Scream at that, which Gone and Forgotten, like water over stone in my brain. I was watching this, I was like, am I supposed to understand?
18:02 Stephen Thompson? And I just think like, man, I mean, one thing that doing a horror movie spoof should give you is a lot of reference material to work with. And obviously, this movie is not going to be able to touch on obsession or backrooms. But man, what about the Conjuring movies? Like, I could probably write you a satire or a parody of the Conjuring movies, which are so silly. Where's that? Where's Midsommar? Where is Hereditary? There have been so many huge horror properties, and they're just kind of still mucking around with Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. And then with these kind of glancing, look, we also saw Weapons.
18:45 Stephen Thompson? It managed to like, clear a very, very, very, very, very low bar and also feel like a missed opportunity.
18:52 Speaker 06 A lot of this movie feels like it was cobbled together from screenplay drafts over the past 15 years. And they like cherry picked scenes from each of them, you know, as they were developing it over time. And it leads to a little bit of disjointedness with the parodies.
19:13 Stephen Thompson? Yeah, these are, these are sketch comedy guys. They've always been sketch comedy guys. And there are elements of this that feel very sketch based, and that is a very hard thing to translate into a feature film.
19:22 Speaker 06 Yeah, it feels like you're stitching together like two minute TikToks over and over and over again, you know?
19:28 Stephen Thompson? Of course, my references, I'm talking about like sketch comedy, like, oh, in the late 90s, Mr. Show.
19:33 Speaker 06 But yeah, no, it's like, that's the vibe, you know? It feels like it's cobbled together. There's scenes that like exist in their own world. Like the scene where Shorty's doing Twitch streaming with Kaisa Nat.
19:46 Speaker 05 I thought that was better.
19:47 Speaker 06 That's like a little short in and of itself.
19:49 Speaker 05 I thought that was one of the better scenes in the movie, so.
19:52 Speaker 04 I agree.
19:52 Speaker 06 Yeah, no, totally. I laughed a lot at that, but I don't know. I like, think a lot of the references for me felt dated, but I don't know what they could have done to bring it up to speed, you know, without the movie becoming corny. I don't know.
20:07 Speaker 04 Exactly to your point, Stephen. It might as well have been a series of sketches. This was a sketch comedy bit that like was very loosely woven together. But when they found something that they thought they could have fun with, I think that they showed a deep knowledge and appreciation. Like people who have watched Get Out and Sinners over and over and over and over again, and found something that they thought was funny and said, hey, let's just, let's put this out there and see if other people laugh.
20:37 Stephen Thompson? I think we're, I think we're all coming down in variations on the same place, which is if this is what you're into, here it is.
20:47 Speaker 06 The movie comments on that, though. The movie even makes a joke like, this is not a smart comedy. And I do think we're in like a smart comedy epidemic where you go to the movies and, you know, you don't laugh.
20:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
20:59 Speaker 06 I don't know, like comedies that aren't designed to make people laugh. They're just situationally funny. And the fact that I went to the theater and laughed my ass off, like, that says something.
21:09 Speaker 04 That's a testament.
21:10 Speaker 05 I also think we put more thought into this review than they did into writing this movie. The most robust panel I've been a part of.
21:19 Stephen Thompson? All right, well, I think that's an excellent place to leave it. Ronald Young Jr., Rihanna Cruz, J C Howard, thanks so much for being here.
21:27 Speaker 06 Thanks for having us.
21:28 Speaker 04 Thanks for having me.
21:29 Speaker 05 You're welcome, Stephen.
21:32 Stephen Thompson? This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathama, Liz Metzger and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Kamin provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all next time.
21:52 Speaker 06 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. The 2026 midterm elections are upon us. On November 3rd, voters will determine what the next two years of their local leadership and the balance of national government will look like. Listen to the NPR News Now podcast for all the updates you need ahead of and after November 3rd from NPR News.
22:20 Speaker 04 Oh, Kevin, it feels good to be back. It sure does, Casey. And what a time. The world is talking about AI and what's going on in Silicon Valley. And we are here with a new show to tell you all about it. That's right, Kevin. On our new show, Machine Gods, twice a week, we'll be bringing you the biggest news in tech and bring you unmatched access to the real titans of this industry. You can find Machine Gods from NPR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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