Twenty-six years. Twenty-six whole years since the original Scary Movie taught the genre to look in the mirror and laugh. And now? The Wayans family is officially back in the slasher business. Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall are reuniting as the Core Four for the new Scary Movie, with Kim Wayans, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, and Craig Wayans pulling up for what is basically the most chaotic family reunion in horror comedy history! Paramount Pictures just dropped a new featurette taking fans behind the scenes with the Wayans crew, and tickets are officially on sale.
The official synopsis pretty much hands the writers’ room a hit list. Reboots. Remakes. Requels. Prequels. Spin-offs. Elevated horror. Origin stories. Anything with the word “legacy” attached. And every “final chapter” that suspiciously keeps not being final. Nothing is sacred. Nothing.
So, we put together a wish list! These are the horror tropes that have been begging to get dragged for years now, and the new Scary Movie has the green light to body every single one. Pull up a chair.
1. Elevated Horror That Forgets To Actually Be Scary
You know the kind. The horror that’s so busy being a metaphor for grief that it forgets the assignment was, like, scaring people. A24 walked, so a whole generation of moody horror could moodily run. We love a slow burn as much as anyone, but if a movie is two and a half hours long and the only thing that happened was that a deer was sad and a candle flickered weird, we need someone to call it out. Scary Movie has the receipts.
2. The Trauma Is Literally The Monster
Smile. Smile 2. Talk To Me. Pretty much every other horror release from the last three years. At some point, the genre collectively decided that grief, depression, and generational trauma needed to be personified as a creepy little entity with a crooked grin. And listen, the messaging is meaningful. But also? Can the monster just be a guy in a mask sometimes? Just for old times’ sake?
3. The Legacy Sequel That Hands The Plot To Younger Relatives
Here’s the formula. A beloved final girl from forty years ago comes back. She’s traumatized. She has a niece, daughter, or estranged granddaughter she’s barely spoken to in two decades. The original killer rises from the dead with no explanation whatsoever. The young relative does ninety percent of the work. The legacy character gets a single hero shot in the third act. Roll credits. Halloween, Scream, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even Friday The 13th tried it. This trope is so common that it has gym muscles. Please. Roast it.
4. Cryptic Marketing That’s More Iconic Than The Actual Movie
The Longlegs billboards had people losing their entire minds for months. Mysterious symbols. Coded numbers. Nicolas Cage allegedly was buried under so much prosthetic that the marketing team wouldn’t show his face. By the time the movie actually came out, the marketing had basically peaked the experience already. Horror has officially entered its alternate reality game era, and honestly, we are begging for a scene where Cindy tries to decode a cursed phone number and ends up ordering a pizza.
5. The “Final Chapter” That Absolutely Is Not Final
Halloween Ends. Then there was another one. Saw 3D: The Final Chapter. There were five more after. Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter. Yeah, no. The horror genre has been gaslighting us with the word “final” for forty years straight, and somehow, we keep falling for it. There is so much material here that it’s almost embarrassing. Picture a fake-out where the Core Four think they’ve defeated the killer for good and the title card just says “Scary Movie: The Final Final Chapter For Real This Time We Mean It.”
6. The Possession Renaissance Is Out Of Control
The Pope’s Exorcist. The Conjuring spin-off cinematic universe. Late Night With The Devil. The Nun. The Nun 2. The Nun 3 is probably already filming somewhere right now. Exorcism movies are multiplying faster than the Wayans family on a film set. There has to be a bit where a priest shows up, opens his briefcase, and pulls out seventeen different exorcism manuals because at this point every demon has its own customer service line.
7. The TikTok Horror Pipeline
Talk To Me became a sensation partly because the embalmed hand bit turned into a meme. Skinamarink went viral on TikTok before anyone could even explain what it was. The Substance had clip after clip floating around for weeks. Horror movies are now basically engineered with at least one moment designed to be screenshotted, slowed down, and set to a sped-up Lana Del Rey song. The fact that this whole pipeline exists and hasn’t been parodied yet is genuinely criminal. Cindy filming a vlog mid-haunting? Brenda doing a get ready with me before the killer arrives? Hand it over.
8. The Real Horror Was The Dysfunctional Family The Whole Time
Hereditary set the standard. Then every elevated horror movie after it decided that the scariest thing in the world was a tense dinner scene. Generational secrets. Mom is keeping something. Dad is also keeping something. The kid is definitely keeping something. By the time the actual supernatural element shows up, everyone watching has forgotten there was supposed to be a ghost. The Wayans family making a movie about messy fictional families is, frankly, casting at its finest.
So, What’s Going To Survive?
The new Scary Movie has more ammunition than any previous installment. The horror genre has spent the last decade taking itself extremely seriously, leaning into metaphor-heavy storytelling, and trying to convince audiences that every jump scare needs a Letterboxd thesis attached to it. There is so much for the Wayans family to skewer, and the official synopsis already promised that nothing is sacred. We are certainly buckled in!
What horror tropes are you praying make the final cut? Be sure to let us know by tweeting us @thehoneypop or visiting us on Facebook and Instagram!
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