Scary Movie is a 2000 American parody slasher film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written by Marlon and Shawn Wayans (who both also star), alongside Buddy Johnson, Phil Beauman, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Starring Jon Abrahams, Carmen Electra, Shannon Elizabeth, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, Regina Hall, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, and Dave Sheridan, it follows a group of teenagers who accidentally hit a man with their car, dump his body in a lake, and swear to secrecy. A year later, someone wearing a Ghostface mask and robe begins hunting them one by one.
The film is a parody of multiple genres including the horror, slasher, and mystery film genres. Several 1990s films and TV shows are also spoofed, and the script primarily follows the plot of the slasher films Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Some films and TV shows like Halloween, The Shining, Friday the 13th, The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, The Matrix and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were also parodied in some scenes.
Dimension Films released Scary Movie in the United States on July 7, 2000. The film grossed $278 million worldwide on a $19 million budget. The film is the first installment in the Scary Movie film series, as well as being the highest-grossing film in the series. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with the film's humor dividing critics. It later spawned four sequels, starting with 2001's Scary Movie 2.
Plot
On Halloween night, Drew Decker receives a threatening phone call while home alone. Chased outside by somebody dressed as Ghostface, she's stripped to her bra and panties before being stabbed in the breast, removing one of her silicone implants. A vehicle driven by her father, who is distracted by receiving fellatio, hits her, and she looks at her murderer just before she is fatally stabbed.
Cindy Campbell meets up with her boyfriend Bobby Prinze and her friends, Brenda Meeks, Ray Wilkins, Greg Phillippe, Buffy Gilmore and Brenda's stoner brother Shorty. News teams, including hack reporter Gail Hailstorm, converge on the school because of Drew's murder. Gail hooks up with Buffy's intellectually disabled brother Special Officer Doofy to get info from him.
While in class, Cindy notices the killer watching her from outside before receiving an ominous note and realizes Drew was murdered exactly one year after she and her friends accidentally killed a man. After football practice, Greg finds a photo of his minuscule genitals on his locker saying "I KNOW" on it. Believing Ray took it, he nearly fights him.
Cindy tells her friends about the note, attempting to convince them to tell the police, but Greg beats her instead, fearing imprisonment for the murder of last year. At Buffy's beauty pageant that evening, the killer gets Greg in plain view, while the audience mistakes her pleas for help as part of her dramatic reading. Buffy ends up winning the pageant and forgets Greg.
Cindy goes home alone, the killer attacks her but retreats when she contacts the police. Bobby arrives and is arrested after a cellphone, knife and gloves fall out of his pocket. As Cindy spends the night at Buffy and Doofy's, she receives a call from the killer.
The following day, Bobby is released from jail. Buffy is beheaded by the killer with a cleaver. That night, Gail and her cameraman Kenny go to makeout spot Lovers Lookout to get a murder on camera. After they film the killer murdering teen Heather, he chases them into the woods and murders Kenny. Gail later gives a snot-filled apology to Kenny's family, a parody of a scene from The Blair Witch Project.
Later that night, Ray and Brenda go to the movies to see Shakespeare in Love, where he is stabbed through his ear in a bathroom stall through a glory hole. The killer chases Brenda, but angry movie patrons, fed up with her talking during the movie and her obnoxious behavior, stabs her to death to make her stop and also as revenge for ruining Shakespeare in Love and several movies like Thelma and Louise, The Fugitive, Schindler's List, all Jackie Chan movies, Boogie Nights, and Big Momma's House until Brenda drops dead, much to the audience's relief.
Meanwhile, Cindy has a house party, hoping for safety in numbers. One of her friends Tina gets killed while getting beer from the garage. During the party, Cindy and Bobby go upstairs and have sex. The killer gets stoned with Shorty and his friends in the basement, but kills all but Shorty. After the pair has sex, the killer stabs Bobby and disappears. Cindy gets a gun from a drawer and Bobby follows. Shorty comes up from the basement warning about the killer, but Bobby shoots him. Ray arrives on the scene, still alive.