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Regardless, even though I don't know how to make people laugh, I do know what makes me laugh. And I've come to realize that there are many groups of people in this world, many with undeserved fame, who are similar to me in the comic department. Many groups of people have made fools of themselves, by trying too hard to make us crack smiles. The Wayans Brothers are one such group.

Now, perhaps I'm biased against Scary Movie, having just watched the subtly amusing Waiting for Guffman not long before seeing this. Perhaps my mind was clouded by the humor of Christopher Guest, which seeps in as smoothly as lotion on your skin. It's just that seeing Scary Movie after Guffman, is like....well....imagine watching Battlefield Earth after watching 2001. Are you doing it? Are you feeling nauseous?

This Airplane-type spoof of the 1990's horror revival is the most recent effort from the Wayans Brothers (Keenan directs, Shawn and Marlon co-star). There isn't much of a plot to describe. It's a near verbatim copy of seemingly every scene from the first Scream film, with some gross-out gags and D.O.A. one-liners. Assumedly, this is done to stick as close to the original source material as possible, while "subtly" molding it into grotesque proportions. It only works in the first ten minutes. After the initially funny opening sequence (with Carmen Electra mocking Drew Barrymore's character from the first Scream), it heads downhill from there.

It's set at B.A. Corpse High School (gives you an idea right off the bat where this is going, doesn't it?), which seems to contain every teen cliche imaginable. A ghostly killer is stalking the halls and it's inhabitants. Among the potential victims are the shallow cheerleader (Shannon Elizabeth), the virginal heroine (Anne Faris), the potentially-gay jock (Shawn) and the stoner doofus (Marlon). Whether they get killed or not is irrelevant. The point I suppose is to figure out what "shocking" act of stupidity they'll perform. And then we wait until the next scene to see if they top it. All in the name of making us laugh (or at least of making a buck).

Besides the expected Scream parodies, it pokes fun at various horror films and generic Hollywood product. Among the targets: The Blair Witch Project; I Know What You Did Last Summer; The "Whazzuppp" commercials; The Usual Suspects, etc.

It's similar in spirit to The Wayans earlier blaxploitation spoof, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, which I found to be more inspired in it's satire. The 1970's genre deserved a long awaited skewering, simply because it took itself so seriously. With the Scream series (which started out as self-parody anyway) and it's imitators, they've been mocked so many times, that you feel like "What's the point of doing it again?". But although I admire the Farrelly-style inspiration and chutzpah needed to pull off some of the sight gags (i.e., shots of bouncing testicles, erect penises and literally a flood of semen), I feel that it just doesn't have the timing, nor the intelligence, to carry us through to the end. Not the same way the aforementioned Farrelly Brothers (or better yet, Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker) do it.

This would all be irrelevant if the jokes were funny to begin with, but the Wayans boys just can't seem to hit their targets. It's like they threw all their good jokes into a blender and hit puree. That's thanks in part to the editing. It forces the scenes to go on past a sensible length, beating the jokes into the ground. Their is also a nasty sexist-homophobic streak throughout the proceedings, which belies the supposed "humor" of the murderous situations. As for the acting ensemble, it all comes off like amateur night at the Improv. I'm also pretty sure Marlon was never intended for any type of national exposure as a "comedian". He's just so grating. I sometimes get the urge to call Marlon's house and leave the following message:

"Please Marlon!! Go back to Drama!! You were sooo damn good in Requiem for a Dream!! Why are you doing this to yourself?! Is the money that much better?! Does Keenan promise you a percentage of the gross?! Is he blackmailing you?! WHYYYYYYY?!

Whew. Okay, that's out of my system.

It's not important whether or not this makes you laugh all of the time, or some of the time or even a minute of your time. It needs to make you feel like you should be doing anything better than spending 85 minutes watching this. You never know. They could be your last minutes spent on earth. Do you really want the last thing you see to be somebody get stabbed through the ear with a cock? Now that's scary!

My Rating =

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