Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
Despite a few good laughs and the return of most of the cast from the first two films in the series, the sixth “Scary Movie” falls flat mostly by being too referential to that cast and elements of those films while massively overdeveloping the new cast and the story. Granted, the film mostly parodies the plot of the fifth “Scream” film, but at least that had more success creating a new cast of characters to move the franchise forward. This movie also references a handful of modern horror films, but many of them feel shoehorned in and feel like a cheap attempt to feel modern. While it is nice to have the returning characters back along with some fun nods to the first entries in the franchise, the constant barrage of callbacks to those movies starts to erode that goodwill. The film runs out of steam entering the third act, at which point it becomes a chaotic mess full of callbacks and meta references before wrapping up in a fairly unsatisfactory way. There are some mid-credits scenes, but the first wasn’t worth sticking around for and I didn’t stay for the second. (And apparently that parodies a film I haven’t seen, so that works out.)
** out of *****