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Review by Susan Granger
½ star out of 4
It's ironic that Miramax, the studio that launched the
teen-horror satire genre back in 1996 with "Scream," has now done its
own raunchy spoof of the trend. Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, it
dives into Farrelly brothers territory, wallowing in obscenity,
profanity and splashing semen, boldly challenging the accepted NC-17
taboo of male genitalia. The shallow, sketchy plot, attributed to six
different screenwriters combining two different screenplays, involves
a serial killer who is pursuing a group of young people. In the
opening scene, lifted directly from Drew Barrymore's sequence in
"Scream," nubile starlet Carmen Electra gets a mysterious phone call,
expels gas, sheds her clothes, runs through a sprinkler and gets
stabbed in her breast implant. But Carmen and the other hapless
actors are stereotypical caricatures of teenagers, played by 20 30
year-olds. They don't converse; they chatter. And most of the jokes
are gross and offensive, centered about the pubic region of human
anatomy - funny only to those with the most sophomoric taste. There's
already much controversy about the R-rating for "strong, crude sexual
humor." Obviously, the 13-member, Los Angeles-based MPAA rating
committee is tougher on serious, rather than comedic, sexuality. Among
the movies parodied are the "Scream" series, the "I Know What You Did
Last Summer" series, "The Usual Suspects," "The Matrix," "American
Pie," "The Blair Witch Project," even "The Sixth Sense." On the
Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Scary Movie" is a crude, lewd 2 - its
full 88-minutes are aimed specifically at the Gen-X and Gen-Y
audience. What's really scary is the amount of money it will probably
earn while far more worthy films pass, unnoticed, onto the video
shelf.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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