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And once again I start a review with mention of SCREAM.   The horror film that redefined and revitalised the mainstream horror genre.   It's been four years since its release and audiences still can't get enough.   While many films have tried to follow in it's footsteps and blindly stumbled, Miramix's over the top spoof, Scary Movie, does the hokey pokey using Scream's very Shoes, totally taking the piss out of it along the way. 
Starting with a dig at the opening Scream stalker sequence, which has become one of THE scariest sequences in horror filmic history (ironically itself a ripoff of the great stalker sequence from "when a stranger calls", though in this case it's downright freaky..people were leaving the cinema at this point!!!  two of them were my friends...chickens! :) 
  Not only does this Scary Movie sequence manage to spoof a ripoff, but it's star, Carmen Electra (playing a character named Drew, get it?) spoofs her Baywatch character at the same time.   At time of writing this review the chap who sits next to me at work was wondering what I was up to (was taking screen captures from this sequence) and so I showed him the opening sequence and he keeled over laughing when Drew is stabbed. so He's going to hire it out on video (poor chap doesn't have a DVD player...oh well:)  [you can't resist the power of the dark side :) ]

One has to thank god this film is blatantly tongue in cheek material as it could have been slapped with an R Rating so easily.  I mean there aren't too many films that don't get rated R where women have their breasts slices, heads get chopped off and people use vacuum cleaners to suck their di..oh never mind. 

While you could almost say Scary Movie is a scene for scene take off of Scream, some other horror references have been thrown in for good measure, ranging from I know what you did last summer, Blair witch project and also some non horror fares like The usual suspects and the matrix.  And the list goes on.  (it does help to be up with all your genre movies)

Even the films character names lend themselves to scream characters and actors.  Our lead in Scary Movie is named Cindy [Anna Faris] (screams lead was Sidney), then there's office Doofy, Dave Sheridan, (scream's was Officer Duey), Carmen Electra's character of Drew, was of course in direct reference to Drew Barrymore who did an awesome job in selling Scream as a horror film, just from that one opening sequence).
and the list goes on with plenty of fun being poked at their naming.

With gross out gags from start to finish and some absolute classic lines Scary Movie will leave you rolling on the floor laughing (and once you've stopped laughing show it to some friends who haven't seen it and it's a whole new ball game :).

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up?

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VIDEO
With another Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer at hand, Roadshow have delivered another good looking transfer.  Though it plays on the too safe side of sharpness, colour saturation, detail are still pretty good even with the soft image, and black level is just about right.  The fact this isn't the sharpest of transfers helps in the area of aliasing, which is quite infrequent.  Running at a very tight 85 minutes Scary Movie is contained on a DVD5, and has overall been nicely encoded, resulting in very little artifacting (you'll only see a bit of crawling on clean walls, etc, and it's quite an effort to even notice it).
Direct comparisons to the region 1 version, which is also anamorphic Widescreen show our PAL version to look that little bit better, with a smoother image overall with a hint more sharpness. 

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AUDIO
Sporting a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track (also designed for Dolby 2.0 Folddown) it's not the best soundtrack of its kind, but still has some fun with it's mutlichannel sound mix.

Music makes the most use of the surround channels, with the odd sound FX thrown in for good measure.  Dialogue is always clear and intelligible,and the audio's sync is not a problem with this DVD (good to see Miramax putting some effort into their later sound mixes)
Overall this soundtrack lacks a good dynamic punch as it's quite subdued in the upper frequencies.   

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EXTRAS
Ooooh, what could have been an special Edition DVD with an endless supply of bloopers, commentary tracks and all sorts of goodies is something of a letdown.
Roadshow have put a decent amount of effort into the menus, and they're quite fun with their animation and 5.1 sound.  (there's quick movie grabs as transitions to each menu).  And there's also an Easter egg which takes you to a couple of trailers.
As for the standard Disc Features we get a 6 minute featurette, 7 minutes out deleted/extended/alternate scenes, cast and crew Bios, a photo gallery, theatrical trailer and the Dolby digital canyon trailer to kick things off.
Subtitles for the hearing impaired have also been included.

Scary Movie arrived on the scene at just the right time.  it really stuck it to the endless scream wannabes with its gory good fun and made a truckload of money, which has now lead to an in production sequel due out later in the year.  It's a nice little DVD to boot, oh and be sure to watch thru to the Very end of the credits...it's a total crack up!!

Review Equipment
TV: Pioneer SD-T50W1 (16:9 RPTV)
DVD: Pioneer DV717  (using RGB outputs)
Receiver : Denon AVC-A1SE ( 7.1 THX Ultra )
Speakers:-
     Mains: Quadral Phonolgue Gold Amun
     Centre: B&W CDMC-SE
     Surrounds Left/Right: B&W 602
     Surrounds Back : Jamo Magic 14
     Subby: M&K V125 

- Reviewed 15th March February 2001

*Scary Movie  jpeg files for internet promotion use only. Copyright© exists on all aspects of these files. Any reproduction of these files in whole or part has to be given authorisation from Village Roadshow.