Scary Movie on DVD

Chalk another one up on the "all the funny moments are in the trailer" side of the board.

Scary Movie, possibly the most successful parody of all time, has a few funny bits, but if you ever saw the ads on TV, there's no reason to watch the movie.

The film is a parody of all the teen horror movies that have come out in the last several years. It makes me wonder how you can possibly expect to make a good movie parodying ones that sucked in the first place. Surprise surprise, they failed.

Aside from the teen horror parodies, Scary Movie even pokes fun at things like The Sixth Sense and those Budweiser "wazzup!" commercials.

It starts off like Scream, with an attractive young woman receiving an anonymous call while she's alone in the house. Of course she dies. And the killer then goes on a mission to kill all the main characters in the film.

Normally I try to avoid mentioning aspects of a film that the average Joe wouldn't care about (like how many people it took to write the script), but when it takes six people to turn out a script this bad, you should know from the start that you have a problem. It seems they had one writer for every funny line in the film.

The mega-cast includes such names (and no-names) as Jon Abrahams, Carmen Electra, Shannon Elizabeth, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, Regina Hall, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Dave Sheridan, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans. The latter Wayans brother has the funniest part in the film, and the only one with more than one humorous moment.

It's hard to recommend a film you didn't care for, but I know there are a lot of people out there who found it hilarious. So I have to say that if you are a fan of the whole teen horror movie thing, Scary Movie will probably delight you. If your sense of humor is even more sick and deranged than my own, Scary Movie will undoubtedly be a treat.

Otherwise, it's not worth the one or two laughs you'll get out of it.

The DVD is pretty good as a DVD. The picture is pretty sharp, but we've been spoiled lately. At the time it was released it would have looked state of the art; now it looks dated. It's shown in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, and has just a little bit it grain on it. The darks are a little too dark, and the lights are a little too light. Not bad, but sub-par for today's standards.

The sound, presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital, is also pretty good for the time of release. There are some good sound effects (screams, etc.) that make use of the whole system, but otherwise it pretty much goes unnoticed. But as I always say, it's there if you want it.

The few extras include some really dumb additional scenes, a short and very lame behind-the-scenes featurette, and the trailer.

Scary Movie, from Alliance Atlantis Home Video
88 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) 16X9 enhanced, 5.1 Dolby Digital
Starring Jon Abrahams, Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans
Produced by Eric L. Gold, Lee R. Mayes
Written by Shawn Wayans & Marlon Wayans & Buddy Johnson & Phil Beauman and Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer
Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans

Tell us at TechnoFile what YOU think