What did you think of "Scary Movie"?   Good 66% 944   Bad 26% 364   Wait to rent it 8% 117 Total Votes   1425

Grade: C+

Verdict: Sometimes funny, sometimes just too crude.

Details: Starring Anna Faris, Jon Abrahams, Carmen Electra, Shannon Elizabeth, Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Cheri Oteri. Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans. Rated R for strong crude sexual humor, profanity, drug use and violence. 1 hour, 28 minutes.

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Review: It's hard to imagine Hollywood's crude-humor fixation getting much lower. "There's Something About Mary" had its hair gel. "Road Trip" maimed an order of French toast. "Me, Myself & Irene" took a chicken and . . . well, let's not even go there.

Like those films, "Scary Movie" takes the low road to comedy - and dives so deep into tasteless humor that it's a wonder it landed an R rating instead of an NC-17.

Propped up by the Wayans brothers - that would be Keenen (writer-director), Shawn (writer-actor) and Marlon (writer-actor), and they are a talented bunch - "Scary Movie" is a parody of the teen horror flicks that constituted the bulk of movie fare the past four summers.

The "Scream" trilogy, "I Know What You Did Last Summer," "The Blair Witch Project" and, just because it was popular, "The Matrix," all get skewered in a thousand jokes that are either hilarious, mildly funny, not funny, crude, offensive or absolutely offensive. It's somewhat like a "South Park" movie without the social and political zingers.

If you must know the plot, it goes something like this: the opening of "Scream," more "Scream," the road kill of "Last Summer," more "Scream," more "Last Summer," the woods of "Blair Witch," a bit of "Scream 2," the freaky effects of "Matrix" and a lot more "Scream."

The movie's six writers basically take each film and turn it on its head. Like "Airplane!," it's a series of goofy jokes, put-downs and sight gags, but with heftier doses of sex, private parts, drugs, profanity and - this being a slasher film - violence.

When "Scary Movie" works, it can be a lot of fun. Way more than it should, it overplays its jokes. Other times it's just crude, rude and socially unacceptable.

— Bob Longino, Cox News Service

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