Scary Movie 6 Risks Repeating The Franchise’s Biggest Mistake (But It Makes Sense)

1 week ago 14

Anna Faris and Regina Hall in Scary Movie 2026

Published Mar 3, 2026, 12:30 PM EST

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

While Scary Movie’s reboot trailer might be promising, the promo does prove that the spoof series still struggles with its oldest problem. The Scary Movie series has made a whopping $890 million worldwide since Scary Movie was released in 2000. Although the series never won over critics, the Scary Movie franchise has consistently proven popular with audiences.

Both franchises had early trilogies in the late ‘90s/early 2000s, which were huge box office successes but struggled with critics as they continued. Both franchises then had a moderately financially successful early 2010s comeback movie, both of which were met with mixed reviews, and now, Scary Movie 6’s arrival means both will have a 2020s reboot, too.

Scary Movie 6 Promises To Parody Dozens Of Movies

However, much like Scream 7 repeated many mistakes from earlier entries in the franchise, the Scary Movie reboot's first trailer proves that the movie already runs the risk of leaning into the franchise’s biggest problem. The two-minute teaser manages to pack in parodies of over a dozen movies, proving that the series will remain as scattershot in its satire as ever.

The first trailer for Scary Movie's reboot already features gags parodying Halloween 2018, M3GAN, Smile, Terrifier 3, Get Out, Scream 2022 and Scream VI, Sinners, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Substance, Heart Eyes, Wednesday, Longlegs, Weapons, Final Destination: Bloodlines, and more. For many fans of the franchise, this could be good news.

It has been 13 years since the series graced cinema screens, so one could argue that the movies have more material to work with than ever before. While this is true to an extent, it is worth looking back on the original Scary Movie’s reviews to see how its ambitious attempts to parody various movies impacted its reception.

The first Scary Movie received better reviews than readers might expect, with legendary critic Roger Ebert awarding the spoof 3/4 stars. However, Scary Movie also made a clever move by mostly parodying only two movies. The bulk of the movie’s storyline is a beat-for-beat Scream spoof, recreating entire scenes and sequences verbatim (albeit with added jokes).

Scary Movie Always Needed A Clearer Focus

Comfortably the best movie in the series, Scary Movie works well precisely because its story has one clear inspiration. Scary Movie does manage to parody I Know What You Did Last Summer at the same time, but the two teen slashers are so similar (and even share a screenwriter) that this doesn’t come across as forced.

The rest of Scary Movie’s parodies, from The Sixth Sense to The Shining to The Blade Witch Project to The Matrix to The Usual Suspects, are brief references that aren’t substantial enough to derail the movie’s main plot. In contrast, the biggest problem with the Scary Movie sequels is their attempts to spoof everything and anything at the same time.

Scary Movie 2 parodied not only haunted house movies like The Haunting, The Haunting of Hill House, The Legend of Hell House, and Poltergeist, but also, inexplicably, comedy movies like Dude, Where’s My Car?, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Bloodbath at the House of Death. By cramming in spoofs of Charlie’s Angels and What Lies Beneath, the movie ended up feeling badly overstuffed.

Similarly, Scary Movie 3 was at its best when the movie spoofed Signs and The Ring, so the decision to add parodies of 8 Mile into this plot derailed an otherwise relatively straightforward story. Part of why Scary Movie 6’s comeback is so hotly anticipated is because the movie promises to bring back the Wayans.

Scary Movie 6’s Approach Does Fix A Major Franchise Mistake

The creatives behind Scary Movie and Scary Movie 2, the Wayans, brought more focus to the chaotic series. By the time Scary Movie 4 blended The Village with War of the Worlds and Saw and Scary Movie V mixed The Cabin in the Woods and Paranormal Activity with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Black Swan, it was clear that the series had lost its original vision.

That said, the anarchy of the spoof series is part of its appeal, and even the lesser sequels have their moments thanks to the sheer randomness of their humor. Already, Scary Movie 6’s trailer proves that the franchise has made the biggest change necessary to ensure that the franchise recaptures the heights of the Wayans Bros’ tenure at the helm.

Regina Hall and Anna Faris in Scary Movie 3

Every Horror Movie Scary Movie 6's Trailer Parodies

Scary Movie 6's trailer includes plenty of references to modern horror movies. Here are all the parodies and spoofs spotted in the footage.

The Scary Movie reboot trailer alone is more R-rated than Scary Movie 4 and Scary Movie V, and this is great news for longtime fans of the movies. The lesser sequels in the series suffered thanks to their neutered, PG-13 attempts at gross-out humor, whereas Scary Movie can be as offensive and shocking as the first outings in the controversial comedy franchise.