SILLINESS OF TODAY’S HORROR MOVIES INSPIRATION FOR WAYANS BROTHERS.(What’s Happening)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer July 14, 2000 Most fans just laugh at how silly horror movies have become. Three of filmdom’s Wayans brothers decided to parlay their reaction into real laughs in “Scary Movie.” “It’s like `Airplane,’ ” says director Keenan Ivory Wayans. “Those guys knew that the disaster genre had been beaten to death.
“In horror, you’ve had the Jason series, the Freddy series, the `Scream’ series. This genre’s been played to death. . . . Same thing with `Don’t Be a Menace . . . ‘ You had `Boyz N the Hood,’ `South Central.’ ” The makers of “Scary Movie,” which had a huge opening last weekend, are no strangers to parody. Wayans targeted blaxploitation films when he wrote, directed and starred in the 1988 comedy “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.” He also acted in “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood,” the 1996 comedy written by and starring younger brothers Shawn and Marlon Wayans. in our site horror movies 2010
“If you can find a genre’s that’s beaten itself to death and has sort of ingrained itself in popular culture, then it’s ripe for parody,” says Keenan, 42.
“Scary Movie” originated with Shawn, 29, and Marlon, who’ll turn 28 on July 23. “All they do all day is call me,” Keenan Wayans said in an interview. “They sit in the house, and they call me, like, four times a day, going, `Is there something in this?’ And I’ll go, `No, that’s ridiculous.’ “And then they called me and said, `Is there something in the idea of doing a parody of all these teen horror movies?’ And I said, `Yeah, there’s definitely something in that.’ ” The younger Wayanses got together with Buddy Johnson, who’d served as executive story editor on their WB sitcom “The Wayans Brothers,” and Phil Beauman, who co-wrote “Don’t Be a Menace” and wrote for “In Living Color,” the sketch-comedy show created by Keenan in the early ’90s, and wrote a script. in our site horror movies 2010
“And 10 drafts later . . . it got made,” says Keenan. (Two other writers who’d come up with a similar idea are also credited because Miramax bought their script to avoid legal hassles.) Inspiration for “Scary Movie” came from sitting in theaters, watching the recent horror films and seeing how ridiculous they were, Marlon Wayans says.
“The first `Scream’ was good,” he says. “Then they do the sequel and they do `I Know What You Still Did Last Summer’ and . . . `Urban Legend.’ ” “Scary Movie” goofs on all the usual suspects plus “The Usual Suspects,” “The Sixth Sense,” and “The Blair Witch Project.” Marlon and Shawn wrote parts for themselves, naturally, but neither of them is the main character.
While the “Scream” films satirize the horror genre, “they just heightened where you need to go in terms of showing comedy,” says Marlon Wayans. “They make commentary. We show.” “They had an actual, real killer,” says Shawn Wayans. “We had a killer, but we made fun of what was funny about the killer in those movies.” “Scary Movie” also follows in the footsteps of gross-out comedies such as “There’s Something About Mary” and “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” “ `Something About Mary’ and `South Park’ kind of opened up the door,” says Marlon Wayans. “What you do is, you go, `OK, y’all like that? Well, wait till you get a load of this!’ “What we’re doing with the comedy, pushing the envelope like that, is making a parody statement itself. Like, `Look at all the crazy things that people are doing out there.’ And teens love it.” What the Wayanses love is working with each other. Even though they couldn’t come up with roles for brother Damon or sister Kim, “Scary Movie” was a family affair.
Marlon and Shawn expect to continue collaborating. “I like working with him,” says Marlon. “I slept in a bed with him for 16 years. I had his feet in my face my whole life, so this is my best friend.” As for having big brother direct, that was a no-brainer. “Keenan is great,” says Shawn. “I think he’s a genius, and we totally respect his work. He taught us everything we know about comedy and just about life, period.
“It’s kind of like he’s been the director of our life anyway.” Adds Marlon: “So to finally get paid to be bossed around, hey!”
