20 Things You Didn't Know About Scary Movie

Get ready to feel ancient - Scary Movie has just turned 20 years old. There are literally adults walking around on planet Earth who didn't exist when this film hit cinemas in July 2000. Yup.

Scary Movie is largely credited with briefly reigniting the popularity of the dying parody genre, delivering a crude yet frequently hilarious send-up of numerous horror movie franchises, most pointedly Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.

No matter what you think of the series today, there's no denying that the original was a hugely unexpected pop-culture monolith, a highly influential spoof movie which today remains one of subgenre's few worthwhile offerings from the last two decades.

As probably won't surprise many of the film's fans, Scary Movie's production was a seat-of-the-pants affair, with the cast and crew making a number of smart last-minute decisions which resulted in some of the movie's most iconic and unforgettable scenes.

Much of the film would've been entirely different had other actors accepted offers to appear in it, and considering how many people got credited for the damn script, it's frankly a miracle the end result wasn't a totally amorphous mess.

So, grab a Bud and toast a happy 20th birthday to Scary Movie as we run down all the fascinating trivia you need to know...

As much as the comedy's title seems to be parodying the iconic Scream line, "What's your favourite scary movie?", its influence actually goes deeper than that.

Incredibly, Kevin Williamson's original script for Scream was titled "Scary Movie," and it only changed to Scream after the Weinstein brothers felt that the original title failed to imply the film's satirical edge.

This change was ultimately made incredibly late in production, much to the chagrin of both Williamson and director Wes Craven, even if it clearly all turned out for the best.

And of course, this freed up the original title to be used for this parody a few years later.