On the cusp of the 2000s, Hollywood horror cinema was poised to enter a new golden age with films like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was at this point that the Wayans brothers came on stage and set up a parody machine that targets all the clichés, patterns of the genre, even the reflexes of the audience that are embedded in the subconscious. The result was a comedy classic that captured the spirit of its era, had aged gracefully, yet still retained its capacity to make people laugh. Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans, the film takes place against a familiar backdrop that spans from high school corridors to secluded back roads. The young characters make decisions of the type the audience has seen many times before; a masked killer lurks in the shadows; the suspenseful music rises just in time. But here everything is deliberately and skillfully reversed. A staff that knows the golden rules of horror cinema is rolling up its sleeves to shatter those rules. Anna Faris is embarking on a unique career path as a heroine who appears naive but perceives far more than she realizes. Marlon and Shawn Wayans, on the other hand, instantly elevate the film's pace to another level every time they appear on screen. The acting style is deliberately exaggerated, and the reactions are always slightly beyond the norm; for here, the primary aim is not realism but provoking familiarity. Maintaining a high level of crude humor throughout the film is a deliberate choice. This approach aims to make the audience laugh directly and defenselessly on the one hand, while keeping the dialogue with the popular culture of the period sharp on the other hand. Scream's doorbell scene, I Know What You Did Last Summer's guilt psychology, The Sixth Sense's big secret... All of them take on a new meaning in this film. Scary Movie was a trick built on the tightrope between subtle wit and vulgarity, and it maintained an astonishing balance on that tightrope. It sparked a wave of parodies that would last for years; but the brightest link in that chain was still the first film. It retains its place in cinema history as a work that demonstrates how horror cinema can mock itself.