Plot: What’s it about?
Once you’ve been parodied in the wonderful world of Hollywood, it can be said that you’ve really “made it”. Movies like Airplane!, Blazing Saddles, Hot Shots and National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon I are just some of the examples of this very successful type of movie. What is rather interesting about this newest film, Scary Movie, is that it’s a parody of a parody. While you can tell from the cover that it hits on several movies like The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, the latter two are the main plot behind Scary Movie. Take any successful movie, fill it with actors, defy every rule of filmmaking and it’s interesting to see how many of these movies turn out to be successful. In Scary Movie’s case, it’s the most successful movie in Miramax’s history (and this is a studio that has had a few Best Picture movies in it’s catalog). So what exactly is so appealing about Scary Movie? Words can hardly do it justice…If you like mindless, gross humor dealing with drugs, sex and violence, then Scary Movie is right up your alley. Leave all your common sense at the door and expect the unexpected, it’s really better that way.
Just as Scream started out, so does Scary Movie. Instead of the lovely Drew Barrymore, we have the lovely Carmen Electra. At parts, the dialogue is almost identical but it’s those subtle little differences that make this version funny, whereas the original was to make you scared. Now odds are, if you’ve seen movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer then you’ll appreciate this movie all the more, as you’ll have some sort of baseline on what to go by; people who haven’t seen the movies being spoofed might just laugh at the slapstick humor, but luckily there’s plenty of that as well. We meet “the gang” which consists of six friends. They range from the downright stupid Shorty (Marlon Wayons) to the flamboyantly gay Ray (Shawn Wayons) and yes…this movie was directed by yet another Wayons brother, Keenan Ivory Wayons. The group is mourning over the death of Drew (Carmen Electra) who was killed by a masked assassin. This quickly flashes back into a “IKWYDLS” rip-off, but it gets some cheap laughs in. As the town becomes a media center, we meet Gail Hailstorm (Cheri Oteri) playing Courtney Cox’s role from Scream. Basically you’ve heard all of this before, as it follows the plot of Scream almost to a tee.
While I saw this in the theater I could hardly breathe, because I was laughing so hard. I’ve always been somewhat of a sucker for pointless physical comedy and this certainly delivered on almost every level. I guess I would have to say that the only weak point of this was that a lot of the jokes were very dated. There’s a scene, that should have been deleted in my opinion, of the now famous Budweiser “Whazzup” commercial. While funny right now, I think someone seeing this for the first time a few years from now would be rather lost. Still, Keenan Ivory Wayans and his talented brothers are not afraid to show us how low they’ll go for a laugh and it paid off for them big time. The screenplay is clever, though predictable, but the main success of this movie is with the casting. We see that no one is left untouched, as most every race and sexual orientation is made fun of throughout. Chalk Scary Movie up for one to own if you like movies of this genre. Odds are, we’ll be seeing Scary Movie II before long…
Video: How does it look?
Most comedies are not filmed in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but maybe more should be. You’d figure that they would want to fit the maximum amount of humor into the frame, but oddly enough…most all comedies are shot in the 1.85:1 ratio. Anyway…Disney has enhanced this for widescreen TV’s and the image is very clean and clear throughout. The black levels and edge enhancement are right on track and I noticed no shimmering or artifacting, not that I would anyway, because I was laughing so hard. Some scenes seemed a bit oversaturated that gave it a “fake” look, so I’m taking half a point away for that. Other than this minor flaw, I can’t help but say that this is yet another fine transfer from Disney.
Audio: How does it sound?
Sound is something that I really didn’t notice when viewing this movie. While it does feature a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, there didn’t really seem to be an overabundance of sound that left me really feeling impressed. Don’t get me wrong, it does have a very full and rich sound throughout the movie, but nothing that made me want to remember this movie for the audio track. Again, I could have been distracted due to the humor of the movie, but when a movie has a great soundtrack, you tend to notice…and in this case, I didn’t.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Disney has included a few extras on this disc, but most likely not nearly enough to satisfy the masses given the popularity of this film. Included is the original theatrical, a behind the scenes featurette concentrating mostly on the Wayans’ is also included, but it only runs about 7 minutes in length. They maninly stress on how hard it was to come up with a script and to put it into play once you get the greenlight to make a movie. Evidently they did a pretty good job…A large number of DVD-ROM resources are included as well. A screensaver and a screenplay viewer are some neat features, along with a guide for the “culturally challenged” which kind of explains things if you haven’t seen any of the movies parodied. Why they chose to concentrate a number of supplements on the DVD-ROM part, I don’t know, but it seemed to work. Lastly, there are some deleted scenes that total about 8 minutes in length. Most are just the same old stuff that we see in the movie, but one sex scene seemed to really be pushing it, hence it’s deleted. Overall, Scary Movie is a movie that I’m sure will get a lot of time in my DVD Player, and with the extras that are included, I’d say for the money, it’s a good deal. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another version of this come out as a “full fledged special edition” sometime in the future.
