This week on Friday Night Frightfest, we are wrapping up our epic franchise retrospective with a massive grand finale! While the internet love to debate the ups and downs of parody history, we’re throwing out the critical consensus and embracing the pure, unadulterated fun of the franchise’s later eras. We are looking at an entry that deserve a lot more love: the hyper-chaotic, early-2010s time capsule Scary Movie 5 (2013) and the triumphant, star-studded legacy revival that just crushed the summer box office, Scary Movie (2026). Grab your popcorn—we’re closing this series out with non-stop laughs!
Scary Movie 5 (2013)
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee, Scary Movie 5 gets a bad rap, but if you look past the critical hate, it is a goldmine of rapid-fire physical comedy and surreal, early-2010s pop culture. Anchored by Ashley Tisdale and Simon Rex, the film skewers hits like Paranormal Activity, Evil Dead, Sinister, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. From Simon Rex’s incredible commitment to getting physically destroyed by the scenery to the utterly bizarre, self-aware opening cameo with Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan, this entry runs at a breakneck pace. It’s an absurd, live-action cartoon that understands exactly what it is: pure, unpretentious fun.
Scary Movie (2026)
Pairing perfectly with the fifth entry is the brand-new 2026 revival, which brought the franchise roaring back into the cultural zeitgeist. Written by the legendary Wayans brothers (Keenen Ivory, Shawn, and Marlon) and bringing back the iconic duo of Anna Faris (Cindy) and Regina Hall (Brenda), this movie is an absolute love letter to the fans. The film brilliantly parodies the modern “elevated horror” and “requel” trends, taking hilarious, no-holds-barred aims at Scream (2022), M3GAN, Smile, and The Substance. It captures the exact same nostalgic magic as the original trilogy while proving that the spoof genre is far from dead.
Join us as we celebrate the entire evolution of this comedy empire! We’ll break down why the physical gags in Scary Movie 5 (especially that possessed Roomba sequence) still crack us up, and how the 2026 reunion delivered the ultimate fan-service theater experience of the year. It turns out that when you stop taking things so seriously, both of these films are an absolute blast to watch back-to-back.
Spoilers start around 7:15.