Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: In Scary Movie 3, the protagonists are shown boarding over a cellar door to keep aliens out (in a parody of Signs). Cue Cindy opening the door with no problem. It turns out they'd just nailed some planks to it without fastening them to the wall.
Achilles Heel: Parodied in Scary Movie 3. The aliens are fighting the group (though just because strangling is how they say hello), when Mahalik decapitates one with a shovel and says:
Mahalik: I found their weakness. They're powerless without their heads!
Adult Fear: Scary Movie 3 - if attending your daughter's funeral doesn't count, then watching a disastrous chain of events unfold minutes later where a fight breaks out, her corpse is desecrated and then exploded with the decapitated head of what used to be your baby girl certainly does.
Artistic License - Geography: A sight gag involving Detroit before and after the alien attack in which the only difference is the presence of alien invaders, the city already being a violent hellhole even before the attack. Too bad the city they show is actually San Diego, not Detroit.
Asshole Victim: Played for Laughs in the first film. One of the teenagers being stalked by the masked killer is watching a movie in a crowded theater; she's being loud and obnoxious, ruining the movie for everyone else. The masked killer is then shown to be sitting in the seat next to her... but before he gets the chance, one of the other moviegoers steals his knife and stabs her. He then just sits and drinks his soda while all the other audience members continue to stab her to death. When she stumbles in front of the screen and finally falls dead, they applaud.
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Parodied in the fourth movie, when the ghost boy (from The Grudge) and Cindy have a conversation in "Japanese" that is really just random product names and commonly known Japanese words.
Cindy: Hello?
Japanese Boy:...
Cindy: Harro? Subtitles: Hello?
Japanese Boy: Nissan Honda Mitsubishi Subaru! Subtitles: I was killed and my soul walks the earth!
Cindy: Harikari tsunami kamikaze banzai. Subtitles: How sad, my life is also tragic.
The Bad Guy Wins: In the first film, Doofy kills all of Cindy’s friends. He’s then revealed to have been working together with the female reporter covering the story, and they both drive off before they can be caught.
Big "NO!": Which will always end with someone getting run over.
Defied in the first film, when the black news crew leaves as soon as the deaths start.
Black news reporter: Reporting live for Black TV. White folks are dead, we're getting the fuck out of here!
Also lampshaded in the second film, as Brenda yells at the white folks for suggesting they split up.
Brenda: Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh UH! Now wait a minute, hold up! How come when anytime this scary shit happens, and we should stick together, you white people always say "let's split up"?
Theo: She's right, we should stick together.
Dwight: She's right. Okay. You three, follow me! *Points to white people, leaving the three black people in another group*
Shorty: Ain't that a bitch.
Brenda: We gonna die, y'all.
Ironically, its also inverted in the first movie. The last victim of the killer is Ray, who is black (though he's gotten better in the next movie).
Played straight in the third movie, when Brenda is the first main character to die because of the tape. (Cindy would have helped her if not for the boy-who-cried-wolf scenario of the scene).
Berserk Button: Don't say bad stuff about Father Mcpheely's Mother
Don't send Greg a picture of a small penis.
Billing Displacement: From some of the trailers and the poster for the fifth film you'd think Charlie Sheen was the star when he has only a few moments of screentime in the cold opening (along with Lindsay Lohan). Sarah Hyland is a One-Scene Wonder and Katrina Bowden a mere Bit Player but both appear prominently in the poster but probably the biggest example is Mike Tyson who also gets featured despite only having a 30 second long cameo.
Only in the later films. Anna Faris is definitely beautiful, and Cindy is definitely brainless in 3 and 4, but in the first two films she's a parody of unpopular, Hollywood HomelyFinal Girls.
This ain't a war, anymore than there's a war between men and maggots. Or, dragons and wolves. Or, men riding dragons, throwing wolves at maggots.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Lots. In the first movie alone, the film's crew is featured in one scene, and when the Dawson's Creek theme song starts playing during another scene, James Van Der Beek shows up, only to realize he's on the wrong set.
Happens in-universe in the second movie, where Cindy is singing along (badly) to Vitamin C's "Graduation (Friends Forever)" on the radio. Eventually, Vitamin C stops the song to tell Cindy to "shut the fuck up and let me sing!".
Breast Attack: Scary Movie 4 has a torture machine designed to do this.
Also, Carmen Electra getting stabbed in the breast by Ghostface, and her breast implant popping out leaving her relatively unharmed and Ghostface rather perplexed.
Breast Expansion: During the Inception sequence in Scary Movie 5, Jody's breasts get bigger at Dom's command.
Brother Chuck: Most of the characters from the first two films.
Butterface: Parodied with the ghoul that attacks Shorty in the second film. At first he's horrified and it looks like she's strangling him, but he's actually having sex with her, solving the problem with a paper bag ("No no, no kissing!"). They're still together at the very end.
Butt Monkey: Cody and Rachel. Apparently, David Zucker has a fetish for child abuse.
Cindy in the first two movies.
Cat Scare: Parodied several times, first with a character checking for a noise finds a cat, then a dog, then a horse, and later, with the found cat beating up the hero with a broken bottle.
What I'm trying to say Tom, is that you and I should be fighting these things, it should be us coming up out of the ground. Of course we'll have to bury ourselves first, but it'll be worth it. Cool breeze, no sunblock, worms. When we build our tripods, they'll have four legs.
Continuity Nod: In Scary Movie 4, Cindy got hit on the face with a baseball.
"I've taken balls to the face before."
Continuity Reboot: The fifth movie is arguably a reboot of the series, as neither Cindy or Brenda appear, and returning stars Simon Rex and Charlie Sheen play different characters then in the previous films.
Covers Always Lie: In this case, Posters Always Lie. King Kong appears on the poster for Scary Movie 4 but is not even referenced once in the film itself.
The poster for Scary Movie 5 also gives Katrina Bowden a demonic looking Overly Long Tongue (that she is using to In One Ear, Out The Other Sarah Hyland). No character has a tongue like that in the actual film.
Crazy Cultural Comparison: The aliens greet each other by getting the person they're greeting in a choke hold. They say goodbye with a Groin Attack.
Dawson Casting: Lampshaded in-universe in the first film when the characters talk about how, if they were in a horror movie, they'd be played by people in their 20s and 30s (which all of the real-life actors are). They all stop for a moment, letting that sink in.
Dead All Along: In the alternate ending to 2, Cindy was the only one alive as everyone else are ghosts.
Death Trap: Most present in the fourth movie's Saw parody, though true to the nature of the series, several traps are quite silly (example: The Nutcracker, a device that kicks a victim in the groin).
Death by Sex: Yes, she's a filthy so and so and gets killed for it. As usual.
Brenda: This is shit up with which we will not put!
Dem Bones: Parodied in Part 2, when Cindy is being chased by a skeleton, only to be reprimanded by Brenda for being afraid of a skeleton. To illustrate her point, Brenda pulls the skeleton apart and reassembles him badly.
The Dog Was the Mastermind: In the first film, the Scream-esque serial killer is actually revealed to be the apparently retarded officer. Then again it is a parody.
Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Parodied in the second film with Dwight, a wheelchair-bound cripple, who gets offended every time someone offers to help him with anything. He does this even when it makes no sense or is ridiculously hard to do by himself, such as giving himself a blowjob and going up two flights of stairs.
Dramatic Gun Cock: Parodied in the third movie. One of the characters dramatically cocks... a shovel. A shell falls out.
Dressing as the Enemy: Parodied in the fourth movie, when Cindy and Brenda pull two "village" women into the bushes, and after a brief scuffle the women emerge looking disgruntled, followed by Cindy and Brenda, who were the ones actually beaten up. They later settle for spare garments on a clothesline.
Gag Penis: The fourth movie teaches us to never try swallowing all of the Viagra pills.
Genre Blindness: Most characters, most blatantly parodied in the first movie when a character sees two signs pointing towards "Safety" and "Death" while running from a killer. Guess which one she chooses?
The Glasses Gotta Go: Subverted and parodied in the second movie. When Theo tries to seduce the nerdy graduate assistant into giving her the keys out of the Haunted House, she takes off his glasses in hopes that it makes him prettier. All it does is make his eyes cross.
Grand Finale: With the fifth movie being an apparent reboot of the series, the fourth film can act as one, as not only is the earth saved from aliens, but all the surviving characters happily find their true loves (even Brenda!), and it's implied that love will help humanity defeat any future threat.
Hand Wave: Happens to Brenda repeatedly. She got stabbed to death in the first movie, but then comes back for the 2nd with no explanation. And then in the 3rd movie, she dies again. In the 4th, Cindy finds her on crashed plane. The following exchange occurs.
Cindy: Brenda! I thought you were dead!
Brenda: Oh Cindy, I thought you were dead too.
Found in 2 as well.
Cindy: Oh, my God, Ray! What are you doing here?
Ray: It's the sequel.
Cindy: Oh... right.
She also dismisses forever the facts that Ray slept with her ex-boyfriend and tried to kill her.
High Pressure Blood: In the fifth film, Maria tears the head off a chicken, which sprays blood at such high speed that she's able to point a crucifix on the wall.
Hypocritical Humor: Whilst inside the theater in the first film, Brenda warns the rest of the audience not to talk during the movie, while merrily doing so herself. Her behavior is so obnoxious that they resort to murdering her so they can enjoy the remainder of the presentation.
I Need a Freaking Drink: Shorty in 2; after watching the deformed butler molest the turkey (ruining everyone's appetites), he reaches for a bottle of red wine and quickly polishes it off.
Aide: Mr. President, are you out of your mind?! President: Like a fox!
I See Dead People: The first movie parodied the line as used in The Sixth Sense. Shortie says "I See Dead People" to his buddies. They all laugh and agree with each other that they scored some really good weed.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: The theatrical cut of the first film contains dialogue that was cut from the home video version as the film's producers felt the film's skewering of Gwyneth Paltrow was more of an attack than in jest. The only way you can hear this dialogue is in bootlegs of the rough cut or theatrical cut.
Letters 2 Numbers: Scary Movie 5 is actually named Scary MoVie, with that V being a roman numeral 5.
Life or Limb Decision The opening of Scary Movie 4 parodies the Saw example with Shaquille O'Neil and Dr. Phil about to be killed by nerve gas. After being suckered into cutting off his own leg, Phil realizes it's the wrong one and they die anyway.
Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: In the second movie, Cindy takes various random items and somehow creates a bulldozer out them after being locked in a refrigerator while hiding from a ghost.
Look Both Ways: Every movie ends with someone getting hit by a car or a bus except the fifth one.
Misplaced Sorrow: One girl is outraged to find a fellow student has been murdered...because she planned to cheat off said student's test that day.
Missing White Woman Syndrome: Parodied when Cindy sends an email to the police reading "White woman in trouble!" and the next shot shows the house surrounded by police cruisers.
Also in the third movie
Brenda: Another little white girl fell down a well! Fifty black people got their ass beat by the police today, but the whole world gotta stop for one little whitey down a hole!
Name of Cain: In the The Haunting spoof in Scary Movie 2, the villainous ghost was called Hugh Kane. The original character in Haunting was called Hugh Crain, technically getting just around this trope. The name may also be a nod to Citizen Kane.
Narrator: Several, including James Earl Jones in Scary Movie 4who, at the end of the movie, is hit by a bus.
Never Trust a Trailer: One trailer for Scary Movie 4 suggests that Shaquille O'Neill and Dr. Phil are trapped along with the main protagonists. They both die in the prologue.
No Dress Code: Buffy arrives at school dressed modestly in a cardigan. Once her father is gone, she changes into a Stripperific outfit and attends school that way.
No Time to Explain: Parodied in the fourth movie, when the Tom Cruise/War Of The Worlds character says "We're leaving this house in 30 seconds, there's no time to explain," and a random passerby runs up to the window and screams "Alien Attack!". Tom admits that that pretty much covered it.
Nobody Ever Complained Before: In the third movie, the aliens appear to attack the protagonists, who then kill one of them in retaliation, but the aliens inform them that strangling each other is their standard way of saying hello. A kick to the groin is how they say goodbye.
Not Quite Dead: The guy they ran over in the first movie in the flashback.
Nuclear Candle: In the second movie, when Cindy shows Buddy the secret study, he lights one candle, which then illuminates nearly the whole room.
Offscreen Teleportation: The first movie plays with this, where the killer shows himself to the main character and is seen scurrying back behind the tree when she looks away.
Overly Long Gag: Literally every second gag in every movie. It is repeated four times at times, taking any humor from it in the process. Additionally, some of course are not funny, making it all the worse.
Parallel Porn Titles: Actually, "ghetto" versions of Christmas songs seen in the second movie — "I'm Dreaming of a White Woman", "All I Want For Christmas Are The Charges Dropped", "Santa Clause Is Cumming On Mom", etc.
Peaceful In Death: Parodied in the third movie: "My sweet sweet Brenda—-She looks so peaceful..." (cut to Brenda with a horrified expression and hands like claws)
Pillow Fight: Between Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson in Scary Movie 3.
Plot-Induced Stupidity: Spoofed in the first movie when Buffy doesn't believe that the killer exists, apparently forgetting that her boyfriend was murdered by the killer in front of her eyes earlier.
Really Gets Around: Cindy's mother, if the sheriff's and the school principal's lewd comments in the first movie are any indication.
Reset Button: Parodied in the context of dead characters being alive in the next movie with little (or no) explanation. It often gets a Lampshade Hanging.
Running Gag: Several throughout the series and many in individual films, most notably Cindy constantly changing her career, Brenda's promiscuity, and the fact that someone alwaysgets hit by a vehicle at the end of every movienote Apart from number 4; originally it was supposed to end with James Earl Jones getting hit by a bus, but a postscript sequence parodying that interview with Oprah and Tom Cruise was filmed and added fairly close to the film's release. (and right after a Big "NO!", too!).
Also, Cindy's many boyfriends and a powerful... uh, spooge.
Say My Name: Cindy and Bobby while in bed, finally having sex. Bobby's dream has come true.
Cindy: WHAT'S MY NAME, BOBBY?
Bobby: What?
Cindy: (slaps him) WHAT'S MY NAME, BITCH? (slaps him HARD)
Bobby: (cries) Ow, God, it's CINDY!
Scenery Gorn: Parodied in 4. When TriPods attack the world, Detroit is shown before and after the invasion. The only difference is the inclusion of TriPods, all of the burning and collapsed buildings having been there before.
Seinfeldian Conversation: About issues such as whether one can wake up dead, the difference between mice and rats, or the paradox of turning up missing by Mahalik and CJ.
Damn, that is some quantum shit!!
Sequel Snark: The Tag Line of the first movie was "No mercy. No shame. No sequel." This didn't stop a sequel from being released the very next year (with the Tag Line "We Lied").
"Hell House," the setting of the second movie is a shout-out to Hill House, the main location in both versions of TheHaunting (and not the Richard Matheson novel Hell House, as some have claimed — the Wayans Brothers had never heard of that novel when they made the film).
Slow Motion Drop: Parodied in the first movie, when Cindy drops a coffee cup after realizing the identity of the killer, and a goldfish is seen flopping around in the contents.
Suicide As Comedy: In the first movie the main character yells into the air "What are you waiting for?!" in frustration. Little does she realize that on the roof behind her a man is actually getting ready to jump to his death. Upon hearing her he asks "What am I waiting for? WHAT AM I WAITING FOR?!" and jumps.
Teacher: F*** YOOOOOUUUUUUUU!!! *Splat*
Take My Hand: Parodied when Dwight falls out of a two-story window because he refuses to take the disfigured hand of the perverted Hanson, despite Hanson insisting it's his "strong hand".
Take That: Doofy, a parody of David Arquette's character Dewey.
Also "MJ" in the third film, a parody of Michael Jackson, albeit implied to be gay rather than a pedophile in order to try and avoid pissing off Jackson too much. It didn't work and Jackson threatened a lawsuit anyway, so when the next movie came around the character was actually called "Michael Jackson" and shown to be a full-on pedophile.
Teacher/Student Romance: In the first movie, a teacher is shown breastfeeding her baby, she then hands him to a student, saying "Here, spend some time with your Daddy." She then points to another student and says "I'll see you after class," rather provocatively.
This Way To Certain Death: Parodied in the first film when Carmen Electra's character is faced with an actual road sign clearly marked 'Death', and still follows it.
Those Two Guys: Mahalik and C.J. in the third and fourth films.
The first film opens with Carmen Electra's character being menaced by a serial killer while her parents are out. She glances to the side, where a table has things like a revolver, a knife, a grenade, and a banana neatly laid out. She takes the banana. And while running away, she comes to a fork in the road where there are two signs. One points towards "Death", the other one towards "Safety". Guess which path she chooses?
Exaggerated with Buffy Gilmore, who's convinced that the serial killer is a prankster even as he cuts her head off and throws it into a bin.
Transparent Closet: A Running Joke with Ray in the first film. Throughout the movie he does many questionable things such as tucking his shirt like a Camp Gay, describing a male character as having "long hair", a "pretty little mouth", and a "perfect ass", and show enthusiasm at the prospect of going to prison on account of the sex-starved convicts looking for a fresh piece of meat, among many others. In spite of this he has a girlfriend who he apparently makes out with regularly, and denies it when somebody points it out to someone else. The second movie makes him out-and-out gay, while he still has a girlfriend.
Bobby: But abstinence makes you discover new things about yourself. That's right Cindy - I'm gay. And in case you haven't noticed, so is Ray.
Bobby: What are you talking about? You took me to that club.
Ray: So? They play good music.
Bobby: Well, what about our trip to San Francisco then?
Ray: I wanted to go shopping.
Bobby: [on the verge of crying] But... you made love to me.
Ray: No hohoho, first of all you sucked my-
Bobby: Whatever Ray!
Twist Ending: The first film parodies the ending of The Usual Suspects, by revealing that Officer Doofy actually isn't retarded at all, and was the mastermind behind all the murders, and ends with him being picked up and driven away in much the same manner as that film's main character.
Uncle Tomfoolery: Shorty Meeks takes this role Up to Eleven Mahalik and CJ play this role to a certain extent, though the characters themselves seem aware of it and Lampshade it.
Unexplained Recovery: It's never explained how Brenda came back on a plane in the fourth movie even though she died in the third.
Or indeed, how most of the cast of the first movie came back for the second after they'd all been killed.
Even prior to the sequels, the first movie has Ray impaled through the head, but he turns up a few scenes later entirely unharmed save for a small bandage over one ear.
Unintentional Period Piece: A big problem with Scary Movie 2, even taking into account the fact that spoof movies generally don't age too well. In addition to the film featuring a lot of spoofs of adverts and music videos from 2000—2001 (which are a lot less likely to be remembered than films from the same time period), most of the films being spoofed got horrible critical receptions and were quickly forgotten, which hurts the film quite badly these days.
Scary Movie 4 also suffers from this, as a result of a lot of references to pop cultural things that are now widely considered to be Deader Than Disco, such as MySpace and the original iPod. Fortunately, most of the films being spoofed are still well-remembered and well-regarded (with the arguable exception of The Grudge and The Village), so the film doesn't feel quite as dated overall.
White Dude, Black Dude: Done in the basketball scene for Scary Movie 2, where the Wayans brothers are shown dancing very suavely... and immediately followed by Cindy and Buddy dancing very awkwardly, with the Wayans looking on in silent disapproval/disgust.
Whole Plot Reference: the first two mostly follow one movie in the central plot, Scream and The Hauting (while the third mixes The Ring and Signs and the fourth is an amalgam of four pictures).
Vomit Indiscretion Shot: The opening of Scary Movie 2 spoofs The Exorcist with the girl and the priests vomiting on each other. Scary Movie 3 shows two men projectile vomiting at a barbecue and in the alternate ending of that movie, Cindy is fighting the many Tabithas Matrix Reloaded style, she grabs a pole, jumps up, spins around on it, gets sick and vomits all over the Tabithas sending them flying. Gross.
Vulgar Humor: Several times, but the award goes to the onscreen trepidation of a character's skull by an erect penis. He gets better.
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