The Similarities
When the movie Scary Movie came out in 2000, many viewers noticed striking similarities between it and the popular horror movie Scream, which was released four years earlier. Both movies featured a group of high school students being stalked and killed by a masked killer with a penchant for horror movie trivia.
While Scary Movie was marketed as a comedy and Scream was a serious horror movie, the similarities between the two were hard to ignore. Both movies featured self-aware characters who were familiar with the conventions of horror movies, and both movies poked fun at those conventions while still adhering to them.
The Differences
Despite these similarities, there were also some key differences between Scary Movie and Scream. For one thing, Scary Movie was much more overtly comedic than Scream, with jokes that ranged from slapstick to absurd. Scream, on the other hand, had its share of humor but was primarily a suspenseful thriller.
Another major difference was that Scary Movie parodied not only Scream but also other popular horror movies like The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense. This allowed Scary Movie to appeal to a wider audience than just fans of Scream.
The Inspiration
So where did the inspiration for Scary Movie come from According to screenwriter Shawn Wayans, he and his brother Marlon Wayans came up with the idea for the movie after watching a lot of horror movies and realizing how ridiculous some of them could be.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Shawn Wayans said: “We were watching all these films like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend, and we thought they were so formulaic and predictable. We thought, ‘Why not take that formula and make it funny’
The Verdict
So, is Scary Movie a copy of Scream While there are certainly similarities between the two movies, the fact that Scary Movie also parodied other horror movies suggests that it was more of a spoof of the genre as a whole rather than just a ripoff of Scream.
Ultimately, whether you enjoy Scary Movie or not will depend on your sense of humor and your tolerance for raunchy comedies.
