r/ScaryMovieSeries

Every line was crossed, but it wasn’t exactly a sprint, it was more like a brisk walk through the line and staying close enough in front of the line to where you could jump back behind the line if things got hairy. It feels like they thought just the very mention of race, ICE, trans people, and other hot topics would be enough to offend people and all of those jokes just felt tame and only offensive if you’re the most hypersensitive person in the world. I’m not asking for this film to be an edgelord fantasy, and I don’t care if it’s super offensive or not I just want it to be funny. I’m not one of those people who thinks that just because something is offensive it’s funny in fact, I hate that mentality. But if you’re promising that this movie is gonna offend everyone, at least deliver on that promise and go buckwild. Part of me knew this was gonna happen where the jokes were gonna be more tame than it said they were going to be.

Since this movie is doing pretty well at the box office, there is a high chance for a sequel. Just sharing some ideas for the improvements. Please share your ideas as well.

My problems with Scary Movie 6:

- The movie has no structure. First 3 movies had a general plot that you could follow. Although very simple but it creatively combined plot of several movies together. Maybe just focus on making a cohesive story first. Also please bring the director of the first movie he did a great job piecing everything together.

- Original cast from the first movie was back but had nothing to do. There is so much missed potential with characters catching up after so many years. If you bring characters, please do more interactions between them.

- Outdated references. It's not 2001 anymore, internet trends move so quickly now. You cannot catch up with the trends. And you don't need to. Instead focus on iconic scenes from horror movies/culture (but please stay within horror genre). For example the scenes from Get Out work well even though the movie is quite old.

- Flat and safe jokes. All political jokes were super safe and just reached for the lowest hanging fruit. Again, we have internet culture now. You need to really cross the line to be funny. If you can't because of the studio or whatever then just don't do these kind of jokes.

- Too much reliance on black racism jokes. Maybe it's just me but if you repeat the same white people are racist towards black people joke hundred time it gets old real quick. Maybe include some other groups of people that rarely get made fun in media (tbh this is actually what I expected when they said all lines will be crossed).

- Fix pacing. Too much was crammed into the movie and it was moving way too fast. At the same time it felt very short. Comedy needs more space to breathe. Also Brosferatu and Michael references feel so out of place and break the pacing. Could be cool to just them as promo materials instead of including them in the movie.

- All physical comedy jokes were very cringy. This one is hard. These types of jokes can be extremely funny but also very easy to mess up. Maybe hire someone who specializes in these to help. Recent Naked Gun was pretty good in this department.

- Not enough Ray

Was fucking hilarious! Seeing Ray chase after the dude in his draws had me in tearss. I went strictly to see Shawn on the big screen again and that scene alone was enough for me. I already knew the movie as a whole was gonna be cheeks. I just needed Shawn to come through one good time and boyy did he.

Trying to gauge how appropriate it is to take my niece.

I am very glad to say that it was a better watch on my second go. The chuckles and laughter was even more prominent this time in the audience.

Differences-

In my review of the movie from the past weekend I made it clear that I saw what everyone was complaining about with the film's structure. Even on a second watch, and with my weekend marathon of the franchise to compare, the film gives less time to breath compared to the other films to catch and take in each joke, which is rewarding on a second go as with the right expectations you pick it up easier.

A few examples would be some of the one liners. When Jack visits Tuesday by himself and explains his gloves as being part of an "OJ" costume, Tuesday responds "but they fit". IMO that has layers where it's an obvious reference to the case itself, but also reinforces how obvious Jack is as a suspect if he "failed" the glove test but OJ "passed". It was one of the better jokes aimed at the character. Another joke would be the payoff with Brad, where he is introduced as being "colorblind" and thinks race didn't matter in society but by the end with Ghostface bad-taste killing tactics he became "race conscious'.

More crucial is that certain segments, like the Kpop DH scene or the Jermaine Trailer, when you see it coming, takes you out of the film less. I still think they could've been better integrated to really pay off, or better yet removed and replaced with other material (which was apparently alot). These scenes became important checkpoints for me to re-immerse myself into the plot. For better or for worse, this made the film have more "energy" and made me less bored than during Scary Movie 5.

Flow-

This time I appreciated the structure of the film more, where I think everything until the K-Pop scene was actually structured very well. The pay off of the Teona Taylor scene I still think was Hokey until we get to Tuesday and it's shown to be their take on "Stab". Past that point the character introductions and the scenes they pay tribute to work well. I would say this was the film at its most coherent.

I think the film suffers less from the follow up with Kai Cenat (which follows up on the details of Shorty's reintroduction) and fits with the randomness of the stoner scenes in the original, but the Candyman scene actually highlights an issue shared with multiple scenes in the movie. The party scene was originally alluded to by Jack regarding his "costume", the streaming scene alluded to some sort of Halloween event, and the Candyman scene was tonally distracting as a segway into the party introduction and the edibles bit, despite technically serving as one in the finer details. It seems suggestive to me that the party was meant to have more plot emphasis in earlier parts of the plot but took a back seat in the theatrical edit.

Characters-

Running gags outside of Jack that I appreciated more was Sara in general. Her Anna-Faris traits mixed with the hostile emotions of Melissa's character from Scream 5 were much better a second going, and the scenes with her and Cindy while somewhat fleeting were more effective. On one hand they mirror the tension you kinda got with Judy Greer's character in H18 with Laurie Strode, but on the other hand what they brought to the table was the jealousy angle between OG's and legacy characters. The shallowness of their relationships imo makes the ending pay off even more. Regardless, I still wanted more of this.

Tuesday low-key worked as being a passive character getting into trouble in contrast to Sara's active role. Her slapstick of getting hurt reminded me of Cody and Rachel from 3&4. Her desperation of wanting to live was funny too in the hospital scene, and she was just "out of it" when she met Cindy and annoyed with Jack.

Gale's cameo and death I think was something that definitely improved in a second watch. I originally complained that her arc should've mirrored The Substance more and that her anti-woke platform was her being insecure about younger women reaching wider audiences. Seeing her annoyed while walking past younger influencers ahead of the Jess/Greg scene and the #MeToo joke I think sort off hints at that by the time she's more explicit about it during The Stuff segment.

Jess I still felt had more potential, and someone else noted that he should've been more like the Toxic male archetype that Greg was in the original based on Barry from I Know What You Did Last Summer. You see this in the scene when he slaps Greg and calls him a bitch. Jess' jab at Ray being a homophobic stereotype during the trivia section of that scene I think plays on a similar strength with Brad's "arc" and Dei's disapproval of Cindy during the living room scene calling her a "Honky" and Shorty calling her a "White Bitch" as a term of endearment. It actually could've been a stronger joke about the distance between the legacy and OG's about how culturally crude the original characters are now to some based on "modern sensibilities" as well as potentially poking at hypocrisies. Like Brad defending Elle's sexual positivity because it obviously benefits him.

Doofy was funnier on a second watch, but I still agree his alter ego should've been referenced. A perfect time would've been there were no witnesses when he casted everyone away on the elevator. Definitely a missed opportunity. Another missed opportunity was context for Cindy's John Wick transition, which in and of itself was a good choice because it references her showdown with Ghostface in the original parodying The Matrix, both being iconic action sequences with Keanu Reeves.

Tone-

I really don't want to give this film too many crutches, but I want to avoid criticisms of material being about the film/art "I wanted to see" as opposed to understanding the intent of the artist and trying to figure out where it failed in execution.

Alot of my issues I still had with the film, and points of how to invest more into jokes, could be mitigated from the perspective of how "Meta" this movie is compared to the others. The level we see in the ending was alluded to with Cindy's first scene when talking about her "past". Alot of the lack of investment in characters or scenes could be justified by the cynicism towards "rebootquels" and setting things up for future entries. IMO it still would be better if we had both, it raises the point of how much the "Meta nature" of the film works.

I would argue that despite some peoples issues with this, the ending and the self awareness of it, creating a thinner line between the characters and the actors works on at least 3 levels. First it heavily emphasizes jokes from the first movie from Bobby and Ray from around the same point of the first film, it builds upon the "Meta nature" of the franchise it parodies (as well as explains the large number of Ghostfaces at the end), and arguably improves upon a weakness of Scream 5. The Ghostface reveal was argued to have been pretty weak and some reviews of the movie argued that it does very little new. The motive of "Ghostface" here we know comes from a very real place and the plane of awareness it comes from makes it stick out compared to past entries.

As it is, despite others seeing it as clunky, I genuinely think it elevates the film in the context of the franchise for the better. It left me thinking more than Scary Movie 5, that much I can say.

Verdict-

Overall I think Scary Movie 6, fundamentally, aimed better than I thought. There still remains flaws in execution and investment in the right characters/jokes, and leaves me wanting an extended version upon home media release. A second rewatch left me with a more solid impression of what they were going for and that gives me some additional satisfaction.

I think the post credit scenes shows the weaknesses and strengths of the movie. The Nosferatu parody I think shows the weaker aspects of the Wayans approach, while the additional Longlegs segments reveal the strengths. One is irreverent based on crude cultural messages that becomes tiresome, the other emulates the source material and effectively takes the piss out of it too.

I think the "offensive" or "dated" material was slightly better the second time, but less so for the content covered as opposed to joke structure in general. In terms of directionality, as I said in the section about Jess/Dei/Brad there was definitely something there to work with but definitely didn't get enough investment. I think this was something that the marketing worked against the film for on what to expect. Had they been tightened more, I think it would've delivered a pretty surprising angle.

Which one shines through and latches itself to the viewer seems to be a toss up, but I now grasp how so many people can be this divided on a comedy. Would love to hear anyone else's thoughts and observations about the movie.

I wonder what you all think of this. This movie truly left many fans, including myself, very disappointed. As I thought back on what it was in the first movie that I loved so much, I realized that the comedy about Scary Movie’s Ghostface is the same thing that makes him scary in the Scream series. I feel like Ghostface shines in chase sequences and silence. When the subservient ghostface site appeared for marketing weeks ago, someone commented in a Reddit thread that they were “glad the movie remembered that ghostface is a great silent movie character.” There are so many gags in the first movie when he was dead silent and they create a slight suspense in the action of him chasing victims. And in that leaves so much room for comedy and stunt gags. I feel like in most of this film, Ghostface just appears and makes jokes, that ultimately aren’t that clever or funny. The whole movie, everyone is really just standing there. The whole movie ultimately plays out as like a bad stand-up routine.

Thoughts?