Scary Movie (2026) Review

Scary Movie will be released in theaters on June 5.

Scary Movie 2026 (aka Scary Movie 6) is a film that is likely to deliver pretty much what you’re expecting from it going in. After all, you already know if you loved, liked, hated, or were sorta somewhere in the middle on the early films in the franchise. And this reunion of the team who made the first two installments – with the Wayans brothers finally back guiding the series – picks up just where they left off in terms of its rapid-fire gags based on familiar movie scenes, plenty of which are lackluster and some of which are really funny.

The plot begins as a new Ghostface killer has a new target, beginning their latest killing spree by…

Eh, it’s Scream 5. They’re doing Scream 5’s plot and characters this time, in a series that has always used one or two movies as the central framework to hang the rest of its joke tangents on. Olivia Rose Keegan’s Sara and Savannah Lee Nassif’s Tuesday are subbing in for sisters Samantha and Tara Carpenter, Cameron Scott Robert’s Jack is subbing in for Sam’s boyfriend, Richie, and so on and so forth, with Sydney Park, Gregg Wayans, Benny Zielke, and Ruby Snowber filling out the new group of teens. Except in this version, Sara and Tuesday’s mother isn’t absent; she’s Anna Faris’ returning Cindy Campbell, in a plotline that layers in most of the original Scary Movie crew – including Regina Hall’s Brenda, Marlon Wayans’ Shorty, and Shawn Wayans’ Ray – onto the Scream 5 spine for a larger intertwining of two generations than that film was aiming for.

Of course no one ever goes to a Scary Movie installment for the storyline, but rather the R-rated jokes and the parodies throughout. This one delivers the expected nonstop barrage of sight gags, sound gags, sex gags, and slapstick gags – including the requisite jokes about Ray’s not-so closeted homosexuality or that Shorty quite enjoys marijuana – all while the central Scream scenario is constantly being invaded by bits culled from the likes of Sinners, Weapons, Get Out, and much more. Some of these moments, like the two scenes directly pulled from Sinners, feel like missed opportunities by just lightly touching upon a film that feels so ripe for a bigger and funnier parody. Others, like a riff on Longlegs featuring the great trio of Chris Elliot, Damon Wayans Jr. and Heidi Gardner, work better as far as hitting most of the beats you’d hope from a send-up of the source material, even with limited screen time.

In general, Scary Movie 2026’s joke success rate is unfortunately on the low side, feeling like maybe 3 or 4 out of every 10 jokes hit the mark. There are genuinely funny and clever gags here, to be sure, including surreal touches such as a moment involving a knife stabbing a poster and how the poster itself reacts. But there are also too many jokes that are whiffs or fall into the “hey, I remember when that happened in that other movie” basket, such as a Terrifier 3 parody that basically just looks and feels like Terrifier 3. Similarly, there’s a sight gag pulled from the humor-filled Final Destination Bloodlines that is just doing the same joke that movie already made rather than putting a new spin on it.

As with the original Scary Movie back in 2000, it’s also innately odd to use a Scream movie as the center of a parody like this when the thing being parodied was so self-aware and using humor to poke fun at itself and its genre in the first place. It results in scenes where it’s simply echoing the same joke Scream 5 (and, in a couple of scenes, Scream 6) already did, such as when the characters make pointed remarks about the kind of legacy sequel that we’re in the midst of watching. Also, as much as it feels silly to harp on the story, the copying of Scream 5’s plot and nearly every character from it, while then also bringing back a ton of Scary Movie alumni (including Lochlyn Munro’s Greg, Cheri Oteri’s Gail, and Dave Sheridan’s Doofy, all returning for the first time since the first movie) means there’s just too many damn characters and the cast are left fighting for screen time.

A big selling point of this movie is the reunion of Anna Faris and Regina Hall as Cindy and Brenda, given these two very talented women were always really funny together, even during the Scary Movie franchise’s weaker points. And they still are funny, but they also tend to just pop in and out of the movie — like nearly every character – and they aren’t in nearly as many of the same scenes together as one would hope. Still, they do both prove once more how well they can nail a joke, including an especially hysterical line delivery from Hall near the end.

Amongst the likeable younger cast, Keegan (legit looking like she could be Faris’ daughter) and Nassif (legit evoking Jenna Ortega) are especially funny and charismatic too, as is Snowber in a showy role that’s a bit of an amalgam of Scream 5’s Liv and Amber. And there are, per usual for this franchise, several notable celebrity cameos, a couple of which deliver some of the bigger laughs in the film.

In the midst of this, it stands out that some of the better parody moments in Scary Movie 6 (let’s just call it what it is!) aren’t even from horror movies, including one targeting a recent biopic and another one based around a huge animated sensation. Co-writing the screenplay, brothers Marlon, Shawn and Keenan Ivory Wayans, along with their nephew Craig Wayans and Rick Alverez (all five share screenwriting credit), and director Michael Tiddes often feel as though they’d rather aim their comedic barbs elsewhere than what they’re mostly confined to by this title, given some of the more clever gags involve both those non-horror targets and jokes that break the fourth wall in a major way and are about the cast themselves.