Scary Movie

Twenty-six years after first outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer, the Core Four find themselves back in his crosshairs, and no horror property is safe from the crossfire. Spoof comedy returns to its old hunting ground with the same appetite for parody, gross-out gags and jokes that go exactly as far as the tagline warns. The legacy-sequel framing is part of the target too, which hands the film a decade of modern horror to chew on alongside the classics.

If you grew up on this brand of shameless send-up, you already know whether the reunion appeals: the humor is broad, the references come thick, and restraint is nowhere in the building. At ninety-six minutes it moves fast enough that a joke which misses is gone before it matters. Viewers fluent in recent horror hits will catch the most, and anyone easily offended should skip it outright. A loud, silly watch for a group that wants to shout at the screen.