Scary Movie 7: Does Scary Movie 6 Set Up A Sequel?

Thirteen years after the previous movie in the franchise (a big series low, if we’re being honest), Scary Movie returned this summer with a sixth instalment that was met with nervous anticipation, and delivered what we all should have expected.

So far, Scary Movie 6 has done about as well as the last few titles in the spoof comedy-horror series — which is to say, the critics have issued a collective shrug and audiences have come out in droves to watch it.

Talking on The Big Picture podcast this week, Amanda Dobbins correctly noted that the movies’ horror parodies don’t even need to subvert what they’re parodying, because the built-in IP can be used to make a trailer that feels immediately eye-catching and familiar — certainly enough to sell tickets and make a hefty profit.

The movie has already quadrupled its budget in less than a week. Given the fact that horror movies in general are thankfully showing no sign of going out of fashion, and the protagonists (Cindy, Shorty, Brenda et al) always manage to come back regardless of how many times they get shot or stabbed, the Wayans brother could easily just keep making these things until the cows come home.

But, seeing as we’re looking at this one from a narrative point of view, let’s dig a little deeper into what happens in Scary Movie 6 and see if we can find any clues that point to another installment.

What happens at the end of Scary Movie 6

Arriving after the biggest gap between these movies since Scary Movie was released in 2000, the Wayans naturally had a lot of ground to cover with this one, so even though its 96-minute runtime is the longest in the franchise so far, Scary Movie 6 doesn't really concern itself too much with its own plot, let alone setting up the next one. The Wayans instead use that time to make a movie that the characters acknowledge as a “Rebootquel” — it brings back a host of legacy characters from the first five movies while also setting up some new ones.

This is the first time that the Wayans have been directly involved in the franchise since Scary Movie 2 (2001) and the first that Anna Faris and Regina Hall have appeared in since Scary Movie 4 (2006), which leaves plenty of space for jokes about those absences (and going behind each other's back for a pay cheque) but not a whole lot when it comes to introducing a new generation to pass the torch to.

Regardless, the movie builds to a John Wick-style shootout that sees Faris’ Cindy take out a small army of Ghostfaces, one headshot after another, until all that’s left is a pile of bodies (including those of the new characters) and, as expected, not a lot of narrative sense.

In the final scene, Cindy, Brenda, Shorty, and Ray are left in a room together, with the Wayans brothers’ characters finally admitting that they were responsible this time, as revenge for not being included in the last three movies.

After that, there’s a fun post-credits sequence that riffs on Robert Eggers' Nosferatu and another look at Chris Elliott as Shorthand (aka: this movie’s parody of Longlegs) — though you wouldn’t exactly call either of them a teaser for another Scary Movie.

Does it set up Scary Movie VII?

To put it briefly, not really — but that doesn't mean there won’t be one. The franchise’s intentional lack of inner-logic means that every single character in Scary Movie 6, or any previous instalment for that matter, can easily make a return in any upcoming sequel, regardless of whether they lived or died.

This means that the new generation that are introduced in Scary Movie 6 — played by Olivia Rose Keegan, Savannah Lee Nassif, and Cameron Scott Roberts — have every chance of showing up alongside the legacy characters in another movie. It goes without saying that any sequel will probably make plenty of cash. The question is whether anyone involved still wants to. 

Regina Hall coming back for this one, in particular, felt like a big deal: it was less than half a year ago, after all, that the actress narrowly missed out on an Oscar nomination for One Battle After Another, and even though her Oscar-nominated co-star, Teyana Taylor, appears in this movie (awkwardly riffing on her own One Battle character), it’s hard to know just how much more pull the Wayans have when it comes to that kind of stunt casting.

Getting Simon Rex back into the fold would perhaps be a win (he was the best part of the third and fifth movies) but whether the actor would see it as a step back after his awesome performance in Sean Baker’s Red Rocket five years ago is the real question — especially as he’s yet to solidly build on that success. 

All of which is to say, there’s every chance in the world that the Wayans will return with Scary Movie VII and there is just as much chance they will not. Think of it as Schrödinger’s Rotten Tomatoes splat.