Scary Movie (2026)
Directed by Michael Tiddes
Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans
“A 24% on Rotten Tomatoes that somehow feels like a triumph, because when you spent 25 years in the gutter, any daylight looks like a penthouse.”
Sally's not done with you yet.
Drop a URL, screenshot, or file and Sally will give you the honest truth.
The Review
Let us be very clear about what happened here. A movie that critics refused to screen in advance, that earned a 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, that is functionally the sixth entry in a franchise most people thought died with a Weinstein-era whimper, just opened to $55 million domestic and over $105 million globally. Your movie is critic-proof not because it transcended criticism, but because it had the self-awareness to not invite critics to the party in the first place. Bold strategy. It worked. Barely.
The receipts are genuinely impressive if you squint past the prestige. A $30 million budget cleared profitability before the popcorn cooled on opening weekend. The Wayans brothers, writing together for the first time since Scary Movie 2 in 2001, brought back Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon, and Shawn to roast Weapons, Longlegs, Sinners, M3GAN, Smile, and the Scream reboots. That is a legitimately rich target list. The audience gave it a B CinemaScore, which means real human beings sat in real seats, laughed, and felt their money was not completely stolen. That is not nothing.
But here is the thing, Sally has to say it: a B CinemaScore and 24% on Rotten Tomatoes is the cinematic equivalent of your doctor saying your cholesterol is bad but at least your heart is still beating. You beat Scary Movie 5's catastrophic 4%, which is a bar so low it is basically underground. You also beat a $200 million Masters of the Universe movie by nearly double at the domestic box office, which says less about your genius and more about Hollywood's staggering ability to spend $200 million on a movie nobody asked for. Take the win, but know what kind of win it is.
What It Nails
- +The nostalgia bet paid off hard: reuniting the original Wayans-era cast 26 years later gave audiences something they actually wanted, and $105.5 million globally is the franchise's biggest opening ever, beating Scary Movie 4's $49.7 million from 2006.
- +The target selection is sharp for 2026. Longlegs, Sinners, M3GAN, Smile, and the Scream reboots are all culturally loaded enough to carry parody weight, and the Wayans brothers clearly did their horror homework before sharpening their pencils.
- +The budget discipline is genuinely commendable. Thirty million dollars, instant profitability, no bloated VFX budget hemorrhaging on screen. Paramount and Miramax made a calculated, lean bet and it printed money before Monday morning.
- +Getting the original Wayans writing quartet back, Keenen Ivory, Marlon, Shawn, and Craig, is the single smartest creative decision made here. These are the people who invented this franchise's voice, and their absence is exactly what made Scary Movie 3, 4, and 5 feel increasingly hollow.
What It Botches
- -A 24% on Rotten Tomatoes is not a badge of honor, it is a warning label. Critics were not screened this film because everyone involved knew what the reviews would say, and weaponizing an audience opening against critical accountability is a trick that only works once per franchise revival.
- -A B CinemaScore is a passing grade, barely. For a cast this beloved and a writing team this pedigreed, audiences walking out with a B is the equivalent of a valedictorian turning in a C-minus final exam. The goodwill was there. The execution left something on the table.
- -Twenty-six years between Wayans-written entries is a lot of cultural distance to cover in one film. Cramming Weapons, Longlegs, Sinners, M3GAN, Smile, and the Scream reboots into a single parody risks a sketch-show pile-up rather than a cohesive comedic vision, and with no advance screening access, there is no way to verify how gracefully that juggling act lands.
- -Michael Tiddes is a competent director with Wayans-adjacent credits, but his name above the title raises a quiet question: if the Wayans brothers are all back writing, why is the director still a hired hand rather than Keenen Ivory Wayans himself? That absence at the helm is a creative gap that a B CinemaScore quietly confirms.
Think your work can survive this?
Drop a URL, screenshot, or file and Sally will give you the honest truth.
Who It's For
Anyone who grew up quoting the original Scary Movie, has seen at least two of the 2020s horror films being parodied, and measures a good time in laughs per dollar rather than Metacritic points.
Who Should Skip
Anyone who requires their comedies to have a coherent second-act structure, considers critical consensus a prerequisite for a ticket purchase, or still has not forgiven Scary Movie 5 for existing.
Marketing Roast
You hid this movie from critics like it was a witness in a mob trial, and honestly, respect for the honesty of the tactic even if the tactic itself is a confession. The marketing leaned entirely on nostalgia fuel, putting Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon, and Shawn front and center and betting that the phrase 'the original cast is back' would do more heavy lifting than any trailer. It did. Your campaign basically said: we made a thing, we know what it is, come watch it with your friends and stop overthinking it. In a summer where a $200 million Masters of the Universe movie couldn't buy $30 million domestic, that unpretentious self-awareness is the sharpest thing in your entire marketing deck.
Your turn. Drop something.
Drop a URL, screenshot, or file and Sally will give you the honest truth.