Scary Movie (2026)
After a 13-year break, the ultimate 21st-century horror parody franchise is back! The sixth installment in the Scary Movie saga gets into the re-equel game with the appropriately titled Scary Movie.
Some familiar creative faces have reassumed control of the storytelling this time around.
Marlon, Shawn, Keenen Ivory, and Craig Wayans are back at it again behind the scenes, for the first time since 2001’s Scary Movie 2. After skipping the series’ lone box office flop, Scary Movie 5, Anna Farris and Regina Hall are once again anchoring the adventure as Cindy Campbell and Brenda Meeks.
Scream (2026)
4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Digital
Paramount
2026 / Color / 2.39:1 / 96 min. (Theatrical), 104 min. (Extended) / Street Date: September 22, 2026 / Available from Amazon / 24.95
Starring: Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Farris, Regina Hall, Kenan Thompson, Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Kim Wayans, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Damon Wayans Jr., Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Cameron Scott Roberts, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, Gregg Wayans, Deon Cole.
Cinematography: Terry Stacey
Production Designer: Nicole Elespuru
Art Director: Joseph Nadeau
Costume Design: Ariyela Wald-Cohain
Film Editor: Jonathan Schwartz
Composer: Haim Mazar
Written and Produced by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans, Rick Alvarez
Directed by Michael Tiddes
After the Scary Movie franchises, the Wayans family dipped back into horror comedy with their A Haunted House parodies. Craig Alvarez, a writer/producer on that series and other recent Wayans flicks (he was also a co-EP on Scary Movie 2), assumes the same collaborative duties here.
In front of the camera, Shawn Wayans portrays a deeply suppressed spin on Ray Wilkins who, like Will Arnett’s Devon Banks in 30 Rock before him, is supposedly “renouncing” his true feelings to (badly) pass as straight. Marlon Wayans, meanwhile, returns as irrepressible horndog stoner Shorty Meeks, now a proud 25th-year college senior.
Marlon’s collegiate colleagues include Brenda’s twins, outspoken expository device Dei (Sydney Park) and jock Brad Meeks (Gregg Wayans), plus obvious Mikey Madison stand-in Ruby Snowber as Brad’s, um, sex-positive girlfriend.
Our core four remain at the heart of the most entertaining comedy. While the young actors are all solid (especially Olivia Rose Keegan, doing a killer Farris impression as her pill-popping eldest daughter), the returns of the brothers Wayans, plus Farris and Hall, is what we all came to see. The movie remains as politically incorrect as its Wayans-era forebears.
Other key figures from the earlier flicks sneak in with some fleeting cameos (especially as bonus killers late), although we do get some extended Cheri Oteri — always a welcome thing. And this iteration’s Ghostface dances up a storm.
The primary plot is a mash-up of two recent hit re-quels, the Radio Silence Scream (2022) and the David Gordon Green Halloween (2018). We are treated to seasonings of Sinners, Terrifier, Get Out, M3gan, Wednesday, The Substance, Ma, Nosferatu, Weapons, Longlegs, a variety of other horror franchises in an extended Scream VI-channeling train sequence, and some retro ’90s Abercrombie cinema cuts for good measure. Had the creators just waited a bit longer, we’d have delved into some Obsession and Backrooms terrain.
Gone are the wackier, more PG-13 shenanigans of the franchise’s three David Zucker/Malcolm D. Lee-helmed follow-ups. Instead, the scatological, bodily function humor and stoner comedy are cranked back up to 11 in a return to the series’ R-rated roots.
It’s a bit of a reference-fest, but that’s the case with a lot of prior franchise installments. The big twist here is just how much this iteration leans on non-horror selects.
We’re treated to an elaborate, weed-infested, borderline-NC-17 K-Pop Demon Hunters animated musical sequence (although it’s not… unmemorable), a Keenan Thompson cameo taking broad slapstick digs at this year’s billion-dollar biopic Michael, brisk Wicked, Squid Game, and Brokeback Mountain shoutouts, Lexus’ “December to Remember” commercial campaigns, and even an E.T. moon silhouette gag.
Beyond strict film and TV parodies, however, this marks the first Scary Movie of the post-social media and MAGA age, so naturally livestreamers and January 6th-ers alike are roundly skewered. And, yes, Regina Hall weighs in on the Kendrick Lamar-vs.-Drake discourse.
This 2026 Scary Movie is laced with meta moments, culminating in some deeply honest reflections from Marlon and Shawn about their acrimonious split with the franchise’s original producers, and a reckoning with Farris and Hall (plus some others) about moving on without them. The best bit, however, might be the irreverent moment where Ghostface stabs a hospital diagram of a human body — and the diagram screams in response.
All told, it’s a solid installment, steeped in the exact comedy that made the first two movies rewatchable standouts on home video and cable. Its unfavorable Metacritic score isn’t necessarily the greatest indicator — none of these movies have played particularly well with critics over the decades, although in fairness this is a new generation of critics supplying the rebukes.
These movies have always embraced their role as silly, zeitgeist-heavy trifles. In that role, they always prove to be pretty effective. Addams Family Values, it ain’t.
As usual, this Scary Movie was a hit with audiences, netting $231.9 million around the world.
Paramount’s new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release assembles several features, leaning into the Wayans of it all with a “Wayans World” segment.