Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

The cinema spoof will never die

"Scary Movie" and "Stop! That! Train!" revamp a bygone subgenre for a generation in need of high-concept stupidity

Published June 11, 2026 10:30AM (EDT)

Given the 25 years it took brothers Marlon and Shawn Wayans to reclaim control of their “Scary Movie” franchise with the new, “rebooquel”-titled “Scary Movie” — the sixth overall film in the series — one would think the siblings had enough time to scare up some decent jokes, too. A quarter of a century is a long time, after all. And yet, the new “Scary Movie” is stuck somewhere between then and now, with one foot in the early-millennial absurdism that spawned the series’ most beloved gags, and the other planted way too firmly in quote-unquote edgy humor.

Early marketing for the film teased a movie in which “there were no safe spaces,” where “every line would be crossed.” (Never mind that a hacky, low-hanging joke about they/them pronouns, like the one in the film’s first trailer, is a line that’s been crossed so many times the chalk has faded.) “Scary Movie” would, apparently, be a return to the button-pushing, tasteless humor that defined a generation but was now outmoded by wokeness. Hear that, snowflakes? The Wayans brothers are coming for your triggers. 2016 is all about real comedy. Save your liberal crap for “The Mindy Project”!

Ah, shoot, that’s right: It’s 2026, and provoking people with inflammatory remarks is a billion-dollar industry. What a shame that no one told the Wayans that so “Scary Movie” could have a shot at actually being good. Though, it’s important to note that the “Scary Movie” franchise was never good, at least not exactly.

(Paramount Pictures) Olivia Rose Keegan as Sara, Cameron Scott Roberts as Jack and Savannah Lee Nassif as Tuesday in “Scary Movie”

In a time when everyone is hyper-conscious of how they come off, there’s a refreshing thoughtlessness to these films, a folly so proud and surprisingly well-crafted that it turns right back around to feel clever again.

The series’ first film is........

© Salon