By Wilson Chapman
Copyright indiewire
After a solid decade where comedy films were near extinct at movie theaters, the genre seems to be having something of a resurgence. And not just any comedies but the goofiest, silliest subgenre among them: spoofs.
This summer saw the release of “The Naked Gun” and “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” throwbacks to two of the most beloved parody films of the 1980s. The execution varied — “Naked Gun” was extremely funny, “Spinal Tap” not so much — but the mere fact that they managed to make it to theaters instead of getting dumped on streaming was by itself a minor miracle. And “Naked Gun” at least did great business for a modern comedy film, with $101 million on a $40 million budget, painting a promising sign that moderately budgeted comedies of its nature could thrive after a solid decade where the box office was dominated by action IP and superheroes. Next year brings backs the beloved, raunchy 2000s franhcise “Scary Movie,” with original screenwriters Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans back to write the script and leads Anna Farris and Regina Hall reuniting to take on the modern horror landscape.
There’s been a long, proud history of films taking the piss out of each other that stretches back to at least the 1940s, when Universal paired Abbott and Costello with their horror monster staple for a series of irreverent comedies. When people think of spoofs, though, their minds generally wander to the 70s, when Mel Brooks made his name riffing on genres like horror (“Young Frankenstein”), westerns (“Blazing Saddles”), and Hitchcock thrillers (“High Anxiety”). Other masters of the spoof emerged, most notably the Monty Python comedy troupe or the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker trip that developed “Airplane!” and the original 1988 “Naked Gun.”
In the 2000s, parody films were at a dire point reputation wise, as the genre was crowded by lazy, derivative movies like “Meet the Spartans” and “Disaster Movie” that mistook brainless references and gross out comedy for cutting-edge humor. But the recent “Naked Gun” revival is enough to remind you of what a pure pleasure it can be to watch a good, sharply observed spoof, one that uses the conventions of familiar genres to surprise and delight us with its humor. If more movies like it come to theaters, the world can only be a happier place.
Read on for IndieWire’s selections of the top 10 spoof films of all time.
