Scary Movie How The Franchise Changed Horror Comedies

Scary Movie: How The Franchise Changed Horror Comedies

Contents

In the early 2000s, the Scary Movie franchise of Naked Gun-esque rapid-fire parodies changed horror comedies, and definitely not for the better.

You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]

Scary Movie How The Franchise Changed Horror Comedies

In the early 2000s, the Scary Movie franchise of Naked Gun-esque rapid-fire parodies changed horror comedies, and definitely not for the better. That’s not to say that the Scary Movie series is worthless, or that its films don’t have laughs to provide. That’s especially true for those who appreciate a good dose of crude, lowbrow humor now and again. Despite tepid reviews, audiences at the time of its release sure loved Scary Movie, which earned $278 million on a $19 million budget.

Scary Movie 2 performed similarly, but to a lesser degree, earning $141 million on a $45 million budget. Scary Movie 3 shot back up to $220 million at the box office, while Scary Movie 4 raked in $178 million, all with budgets never topping $50 million. It was only with 2013’s Scary Movie 5 that it became clear audiences were tiring of the franchise, as that sequel earned only $78 million. Still, with the profit margins of the first four films, it’s no wonder that Dimension and the Weinsteins were all too happy to keep milking the Scary Movie cow.

At this point, it seems like the Scary Movie franchise is truly dead and gone, but with horror, one can never count out a resurrection down the road. During the series’ reign of dominance though, the landscape of horror/comedy was profoundly effected.

See also  Is The Doll From Squid Game Real

Scary Movie: How The Franchise Changed Horror Comedies

Scary Movie’s primary negative effect on the horror/comedy sub-genre was its infusion of the throw every possible joke at the wall, then see what sticks comedy style of films like Airplane! and the aforementioned Naked Gun movies. While that style can certainly be great in the right hands and with the right cast, by its very nature, the results tend to be quite hit or miss. While Scary Movie wasn’t the first horror/comedy made in this way, functioning as a full-on parody of the horror genre, it was the first to take off and become a hit in a way that movies like Student Bodies and Saturday the 14th hadn’t managed.

This led to a prolonged shift away from traditional horror/comedies, which just mixed comedy with an actual horror story, to straight-up farce, not taking anything at all seriously, and being way more comedic than horrifying. The jokes in the Scary Movie films are also often mean-spirited, and can sometimes feel more like the filmmakers laughing at the expense of horror and its fans, rather than celebrating the tropes we all know and love. Scary Movie produced a mountain of copycats, which sadly continued to make money, leading to a glut of horror parodies with no coherent plot and jokes ranging from the slapstick to the disgusting. While this onslaught finally did abate, it led to a really dark period for the horror/comedy sub-genre, where it became a bit of a laughing stock.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/scary-movie-franchise-changes-horror-comedy-genre/

Movies -