There will inevitably be people claiming Scary Movie proves you can’t make comedies like this anymore.

They’re wrong.

The problem isn’t that audiences have become too sensitive. It’s that Scary Movie has become too lazy.

Despite what some corners of the internet might have you believe, this isn’t a woke person’s nightmare, nor is it a fearless return to comedy’s glory days. That would require sharp writing, genuine wit or at least a willingness to surprise. Instead, the film barely registers. It repeats familiar jokes with so little imagination that there’s almost nothing left to be offended by, let alone laugh at.

Watching Scary Movie is like turning up to a school reunion only to find the class clowns still hanging around the park, proudly teaching each other how to spell “boobless” on a calculator. The tragedy isn’t that they never grew up. It’s that the world grew up around them, and they never noticed. They keep telling the same jokes, convinced they’re as outrageous as they were twenty years ago, while everyone else has quietly moved on.

The humour rarely evolves beyond sex jokes, bodily fluids and increasingly desperate attempts at shock value. Once you’ve seen the first twenty minutes, you’ve essentially seen the whole film. Every gag feels like a variation on one you’ve already sat through.

Perhaps the biggest surprise came from the audience itself. Younger cinemagoers around me were flinching as though they were watching an intense horror film rather than an increasingly tired parody. It was a strange reminder that successful spoof films need more than references and crude humour. They need jokes that actually land.

Ironically, the film’s biggest problem may not be entirely its own making.

Modern horror has become so aesthetically uniform that there’s surprisingly little fresh material to parody. Formulaic jump scares, muted colour palettes and interchangeable supernatural stories have flattened the genre into something much harder to satirise than the slashers and teen horrors that inspired the original Scary Movie.

But that’s an explanation, not an excuse.

If the genre has changed, the comedy needed to change with it.

Instead, Scary Movie behaves as though time has stood still. It relies almost entirely on the goodwill of millennials who remember the originals without recognising that audiences have moved on. The result isn’t offensive. It isn’t outrageous. It isn’t controversial.

It’s just uninspired.

Commercially, it’ll probably do perfectly well. Nostalgia has become one of Hollywood’s safest investments, and I wouldn’t be surprised if another sequel follows.

Creatively, however, this feels like a franchise laughing at its own past rather than finding anything new to say.

The original Scary Movie films were crude, juvenile and often ridiculous, but they were also products of their time. This revival simply repeats those instincts without asking whether they’re still enough.

Sometimes revisiting an old joke reminds you why it worked.

Sometimes it reminds you how long ago people stopped laughing.