Scary Movie (2000)

What makes Scary Movie special is how gleefully it treats the horror canon like a piñata—swinging hard, landing clean hits, and somehow finding fresh laughs in scenes you swear you’ve seen a hundred times. Keenen Ivory Wayans keeps the pace snappy and the tone deliciously irreverent, while Anna Faris commits with such fearless sincerity that the absurdity feels oddly, perfectly grounded. It’s a smart parody disguised as a lowbrow riot, packed with sight gags and razor-sharp riffs that reward anyone fluent in slasher and teen-thriller clichés. Fair warning: the humor is proudly crude and not exactly subtle, but if you’re in the mood for a loud, clever, unapologetic send-up, it’s hard to beat.

Scary Movie is trying to be a rapid-fire love letter to (and takedown of) late-’90s slashers, stuffing in as many recognizable references and punchlines as it can manage. The catch is that its idea of “satire” often means crude, gross-out gags and deliberately offensive jokes, delivered with all the subtlety of a foghorn—if that’s not your brand of comedy, you’ll be checking your watch fast. The plot and characters are basically scaffolding for sketches, so if you need wit, coherence, or even a consistent tone, this will feel uneven and pretty dumb on purpose. Still, if you can stomach the lowbrow approach, Anna Faris commits hard and the sheer pace of spoofing can be entertaining in a “turn your brain off” way.