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Scary Movie
(***)
This is the kind of movie I dread reviewing. How do I go about telling you about this movie? I liked it, that's for sure. But how do I convey this point? I can't really discuss the plot, because it's basically a mixture of "Scream", "I Know what you did last summer", and other horror and sci/fi entries during the 90's.
In fact, even the killers are the same. Sort of. In fact, the intelligence shown at the end of this movie is something I really wasn't expecting. The clues were there, but I just didn't know who the killer was. I mean the real killer. Anyone who saw Scream is going to peg the other two killers.
But I already say too much. Really, I can't say anything about the movie that wouldn't give anything away. I don't mean plot points, because those are meaningless. I mean the jokes; the jokes in this movie is the most important thing. This is no ordinary comedy...it's a spoof of other movies. Sure, I could easily tell you about Shawn Wayans' character's ambiguous sexual orientation, or about the black woman in the theatre, or even about director Keenan Ivory Wayans' cameo in a movie preview.
It's a movie that pushes the extremes of gross-out humor, and it works consistently. Generally I have a disdain for the shotgun approach that the writers took to this movie, but when the jokes work as often as they did here, my disdain melts away into pleasure. Perhaps the reason it worked is because of Keenan Ivory Wayans himself? After all, he is responsible for the blaxploitation spoof "I'm Gonna Git you Sucka". Now that's a spoof. I have yet to see a funnier spoof than that.
This isn't to say that "Scary Movie" wasn't so good. It really was. I feel like the guy sitting behind you in the theatre. You probably know me; I saw the movie yesterday and I'm screaming out all the jokes right before they happen.