The long-awaited sixth entry in the parody franchise takes a “bare-knuckle boxing” approach to skewering the past 25 years of horror history, Marlon Wayans says.

From *Sinners *to Smile, every film that’s parodied in Scary Movie

The long-awaited sixth entry in the parody franchise takes a "bare-knuckle boxing" approach to skewering the past 25 years of horror history, Marlon Wayans says.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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June 5, 2026 4:00 p.m. ET

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Deon Cole and Shawn Wayans in 'Scary Movie'. Credit:

Quantrell Colbert/Paramount

- *Scary Movie *is back, and no horror release from the past 25 years is safe.

- The sixth installment, which re-teams co-creators, co-writers, and costars Shawn and Marlon Wayans with franchise leads Anna Faris and Regina Hall, takes shots at everything from *Sinners *to *Smile *to *Scream*.

- The stars and creators of *Scary Movie *tell EW about their hyperactive new comedy, which even stretches beyond the bounds of horror to films like *Michael *and *Wicked*.

**This story contains major spoilers for *Scary Movie*.**

It's *Scary Movie** *season again. Hide your darlings.

No movie — big or small, popular or unpopular, even horror or non-horror — is safe from the beloved parody franchise's grand return to the big screen. It's been 13 years since the last entry in the *Scary Movie *franchise, 20 since stars Anna Faris and Regina Hall's last dance, and 25 since original creators and writers Shawn and Marlon Wayans were involved.

But the combined effects of COVID-era downtime, the downfall of the Weinstein regime (the first few films were handled by Miramax subsidiary Dimension Films, which unceremoniously dropped the Wayans after *Scary Movie 2*), and decades of enduring fan support led to a big family reunion for the sixth installment, *Scary Movie*, which released in theaters on Friday. That's according to Marlon, who joined his brother, Faris, Hall, and director Michael Tiddes in breaking down the jam-packed new film for **'s *Scary Movie *cover story.

During the chat, the stars and their captain on set delved into the myriad references, riffs, parodies, and potshots taken at the past two and a half decades of horror history that this standalone sequel to 2000's *Scary Movie *strings together. From *Sinners *to *Scream *to *Smile* and beyond, to uproarious lampoons of non-genre titles like *Michael *and *Wicked*, here are the victims of the latest *Scary Movie*.

Marlon Wayans, Regina Hall, Sydney Park, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Olivia Rose Keegan, and Dave Sheridan in 'Scary Movie'.

Quantrell Colbert/Paramount

Because *Scary Movie *skips the line back to the franchise kickstarter, it again borrows its parodic framework from the** *Scream ***franchise. Glancing jokes about recent horror hits like *Get Out *and *Weapons *fly by, but the new *Scary Movie *always returns to the meta-slasher conceived by the late master Wes Craven.

"The key movies that they were parodying, kind of the heartbeat of the film, is *Scream 5* [stylized *Scream*] and *Scream 6*," Tiddes explains. "In *Scream*, they did a very similar thing of taking legacy cast and bringing new cast together to kind of contemporize the material from the original *Scream*." That's exactly what *Scary Movie *does, setting the Ghostface killer loose upon the progeny of Faris' Cindy Campbell and Hall's Brenda Meeks, a new core four (Olivia Rose Keegan, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Gregg Wayans) to rival the recent *Scream *films' core four (Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, and Jasmin Savoy Brown).

Marlon lays out how he, Shawn, and co-writers Keenen Ivory Wayans (who directed the first two films in the franchise), Craig Wayans, and Rick Alvarez went about pinning Cindy and Brenda to new horror targets. Once the Wayans found their "new generation," they had to ask, "Who would those kids be attached to? Brenda's their mother. But what kind of mom is she? She's the mom that wants to still be cool. She's having these parties. It was perfect, because who is that? ***Ma***."

Inside the 'Scary Movie' family reunion for an 'edgy as f---' new era

Anna Faris and Regina Hall promise their long-awaited return to 'Scary Movie' will 'offend everyone' (exclusive)

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Hall says she "did not think Brenda was going to be wearing her hair like *Ma*, or that she had gone so matronly." Octavia Spencer's unhinged archvillain from the 2019 cult classic inspired Brenda's look and approach to life. "Brenda lost all style, but I also thought that was really funny. That is what happens, right? There was something really great about that," Hall adds. "I knew she wouldn't be an ideal mother."

Indeed, Hall laughs when recalling Brenda making jokes about "swimming to Epstein Island," turning a blind eye when her daughter learns that "slavery was a choice" from her school's new history book — authored by Kanye West — and handing out her pothead brother Shorty's (Marlon) weed candies to kids on Halloween. Under the influence, those kids then stretch their arms out ***Weapons****-*style and run straight into traffic.

As for Cindy, trauma from surviving 2000's massacre sends her packing for the remote wilderness, where she creates a house-sized booby trap lest Ghostface return for her. Her styling threads the needle between a wacko, MAGA, off-the-grid prepper and one of the most famous final girls of all time — the ***Halloween**** *reboot's death-haunted Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). "I pitched that MAGA joke to Marlon on that very first phone call," Faris reveals. "Like, Cindy should have gone full QAnon."

Inside the 'Scary Movie' family reunion for an 'edgy as f---' new era

Anna Faris and Regina Hall promise their long-awaited return to 'Scary Movie' will 'offend everyone' (exclusive)

Her daughter, Tuesday (Nassif, gothed-up to make the ***Wednesday**** *riff even more plain), is the first target of the mysterious new Ghostface killer. But the menace isn't long for Shorty and Ray, who shows back up at a Southern church for a ***Sinners***-style confession. Ray's proselytizing about his "conversion" from queerness closely mimics the memorable scene from Ryan Coogler's horror blockbuster, in which Miles Caton's Sam enters a backwoods church after a night from hell.

It isn't the only time *Sinners *gets the skewer. At a party over at Brenda's, more *Sinners *jokes tussle with an out-of-nowhere ***Wicked**** *zinger and a surprisingly high-octane ***John Wick**** *spoof that Faris says prompted "five drafts of an email to Keanu Reeves saved on my phone."

Also at Brenda's, Shorty encounters Ghostface playing the role of Catherine Keener in ***Get Out ***(mere moments after a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to ***It Follows***), lulling him into a trance until he descends into the Sunken Place. Instead of a howling void, however, Shorty is swept up into a THC-infused parody of ***KPop Demon Hunters**** *that has to be seen to be believed. "With *KPop Demon Hunters*, that came out a little later on, and we found that as an opportunity because K-pop does so well, and is just becoming a piece of pop culture, which *Scary M*ovie is synonymous with," Tiddes says.

Still from a 'Scary Movie' parody of 'Weapons'.

Paramount Pictures

The director found it "challenging" to cram this "rainbow of horror movies" all into one, streamlined experience. "How do you fit *Get Out *and ***Terrifier**** *and ***I Know What You Did Last Summer***, and make them feel like they belong in one universe?" he asked.

The final *Scary Movie *trailer opens with a fittingly grotesque send-up of *Terrifier*, the ultra-bloody, low-budget clown slasher that's built a cult following. And it also shows Cheri Oteri's Gail Hailstorm, a returning riff on Courteney Cox's *Scream *reporter Gale Weathers, in a pitch-perfect parody of the conceptual creeper ***The Substance***. Somehow, that sequence folds in on itself, revealing a joke about one of the Wayans' own past hits, ***White Chicks***.

"We were looking for something that was non-horror," Marlon explains, "because you don't want to stay there. Horror's a dark place. You want to come out of there every once in a while for a vacation." That was also the thinking behind casting Kenan Thompson in a self-contained parody of the jukebox biopic *Michael*, as a comically inept Jermaine Jackson. "We were doing reshoots, additional photography, and we saw the ***Michael* **trailer, and we were like, 'Boom, here it goes. This would be perfect, and here's how we do it,'" Marlon recalls.

Chris Elliott in a 'Longlegs' parody in 'Scary Movie'.

Paramount Pictures

Tagging Thompson in for *Michael *opened up the *Saturday Night Live *talent pool for the Wayans to cast Heidi Gardner in a parody of Osgood Perkins' surreal, serial killer thriller ***Longlegs***. "We just thought Heidi was hilarious... we were thinking about that character — it's always about the character. And that character being psychic, but playing it dumb, but still being hilarious," he says. Gardner appears in the post-credits sequence as a version of Maika Monroe's understated Lee Harker, while Chris Elliott reprises his infamous *Scary Movie 2 *role to play Longlegs himself, in a movie-within-the-movie dubbed "Shorthand."

Robert Eggers' ***Nosferatu**** *gets the post-credits treatment too, with an entirely convincing short called *Brosferatu*, which is ready for its own production greenlight. "I probably could've did six more scenes, or eight more scenes," Marlon says. So every time they wrapped a parody that didn't end up gelling with the rest, "we thought, 'Let's put it as an Easter egg.'"

Anna Faris in a 'Halloween' parody in 'Scary Movie'.

Quantrell Colbert/Paramount Pictures

Three notable final horror parodies include a riff on Parker Finn's instantly memeable series ***Smile***. *Scary Movie 1 *star Jon Abrahams returns to menace Cindy, his ex, by grinning at her like a maniac in a psychiatric holding facility. Shorty then accidentally summons the otherworldly power of ***Candyman**** *when he simply meant to call his dealer. An early *Scary Movie *trailer opened with a nod to the often-imitated, never-duplicated dance scene from ***M3GAN***.

It sounds like a lot, but it's only the half of it. *Scary Movie *also takes on political targets like Fox News, cultural phenomena like livestreaming, and history-altering events like the COVID pandemic. Audiences may see the film as catching up on the last 25 years of horror, but Marlon expands the frame much wider. "If you look at the Wayans brand over a course of, we've been around 50 years if you include Keenen's career. But then Damon's career, and Shawn and I, and Kim, that's about 200 years of comedy," he says. "We've always been people that want to fill that page with as many jokes as possible... and that's what we do here."

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