Summary
Sometimes a parody movie is so good that it actually ends up being a stronger entry in the genre it spoofs than most straightforward entries in that genre.Shaun of the Deadis better than most zombie movies,Paulis better than most alien visitor movies, andTop Secret!is better than any of Elvis Presley’s rock ‘n’ roll musicals. It’s common for parody movies to not even work as comedies, likeDisaster MovieorVampires Suck, but the very best are not only great comedies, but great movies.
If a filmmaker sets out to satirize a genre, it’s usually because they have a deep affection for that genre, so the last thing they want to do is make a bad addition to it. They know what makes their chosen genre so great and what an entry in that genre needs to do to deliver the goods. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg knew what fans wanted from a great “buddy cop” movie when they madeHot Fuzz. Wes Craven knew how to deliver a great slasher underneath the sly self-awareness ofScream.
10 Parodies That Became More Iconic Than The Movies They Spoofed
From Airplane! to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, some parodies are so great and iconic that they outshine the movies they’re making fun of.
10Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
When Funny or Die released a fake trailer for a satirical biopic of “Weird Al” Yankovic, the real Yankovic saw a great opportunity to spoof the onslaught of musician biopics. He teamed up with the fake trailer’s director, Eric Appel, to turn the fake trailer into a feature-length lampoon of music biopics.Weird: The Al Yankovic Storylambasts the biopic genre’s oversimplification and melodramatization of musicians’ lives, parodying music biopics the same way thatWeird Al’s songsparody the hits.
But here’s the thing: against all odds,Weird: The Al Yankovic Storyis a great movie. It’s a better music biopic thanElvisorBohemian RhapsodyorBack to Black. Sure, it takes plenty of artistic liberties – Yankovic didn’t really have a tumultuous romance with Madonna, and he didn’t really go to Colombia to singlehandedly slaughter the Medellín Cartel – but what music biopic doesn’t take artistic liberties with its subject’s life story?
9Kingsman: The Secret Service
After seeing the gritty realism ofCasino Royaleand theBournemovies, Matthew Vaughn set out to inject some old-fashioned fun back into the spy genre withKingsman: The Secret Service. Although it was loosely based on the Mark Millar comic book of the same name, Vaughn took theKingsmanfranchise in his own direction in the big-screen adaptation. When it hit theaters in 2014,Kingsman: The Secret Servicewas a breath of fresh air that revitalized the spy genre.
It’s a wild, bombastic, no-holds-barred spy adventure, but at its heart, it’s a touching father-son story. The mentor-mentee relationship between Colin Firth’s Harry Hart and Taron Egerton’s Eggsy hits on an emotional level that most globetrotting spy thrillers fail to reach.Kingsmanis much more engaging than most recent spy films, likeThe 355andRed Sparrow.
8Deadpool
In the Marvel comics, Deadpool is both a hilarious satirical subversion of the superhero genre and an iconic superhero in his own right. His first solo movie pulled off the same trick: it’s both a spot-on spoof of modern superhero blockbusters and one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. Ryan Reynolds was perfectly cast as Wade Wilson, nailing both the high-octane action-hero physicality and the fourth-wall-breaking hilarity for a pitch-perfect on-screen portrayal of the character.
Most superhero origin movies are trite and formulaic, butDeadpoolsubverts that formula by breaking up its origin story with a present-day hero-versus-villain storyline. Just when the origin story starts to become boring, the movie races forward in time to show a fully-fledged Deadpool hunting down his arch-nemesis, Francis.Deadpoolis botha great superhero movie spoofand a great superhero movie.
7Galaxy Quest
WhileSpaceballswill always be inStar Wars’ shadow,Galaxy Questhas actually managed to transcend most of theStar Trekmedia it parodies. The story sees the washed-up cast of an oldStar Trek-style sci-fi series being abducted by aliens who mistook the episodes of their TV show for historical records of their many triumphs against intergalactic enemies. So, these pretentious Hollywood actors who resent each other are forced to come together and work as a team.
On top of being a great satire ofStar Trekand its fervent fan base,Galaxy Questis a pretty compelling sci-fi movie in its own right. In fact, manyStar Trekfans consider it to be a betterStar Trekmovie than most of the officialStar Trekmovies. At the 2013Star TrekConvention in Las Vegas, a fan poll rankedGalaxy Questas the seventh bestStar Trekfilm ever made (viaIGN).
6Airplane!
When the comedy dream team of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker madeAirplane!, the disaster movie genre was really taking off (no pun intended). Movies likeThe Towering Inferno,The Poseidon Adventure, and theAirportseries were blowing up the box office with their star-studded casts and special effects spectacle.Airplane!has an inflatable autopilot, a glitzy disco dance sequence, and a soldier with PTSD who thinks he’s Ethel Merman – but it’s still better than most disaster movies.
It takes its narrative fromZero Hour!, which played the story of a flight being doomed by dodgy fish totally straight, andAirplane!’s satirical lampooning is a much more effective telling of that story. It’s a lot more compelling than any of the disaster movies it spoofs – especially the mediocreAirportfilms, which have aged pretty badly.Airplane!is both a ludicrous comedy and a gripping disaster film.
5Shaun Of The Dead
Inspired by a zombie-infested episode of their cult hit sitcomSpaced, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg set out to write their own zombie movie.Shaun of the Deadis a parody of zombie films, setting a Richard Curtis-style romantic comedy against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse, but it would also work just as well as a straightforward zombie movie if all the jokes were removed. From the ominous early warning signs of the end-times to the many jump scares and gore sequences on “Z-Day,”Shaun of the Deadnails the zombie genre.
Wright transplants the familiar George A. Romero zombie movie formula into a British setting. The survivors barricade themselves in a pub to wait out the end of the world.Shaun of the Deadis funnier than most comedies, but it’s also scarier than most zombie movies.
4The Incredibles
Pixar combined the action-packed thrills of the superhero genre with the relatable foibles of a family sitcom inThe Incredibles. Set in aWatchmen-like world in which superheroes have been outlawed,The Incrediblesrevolves around a family of superheroes hiding out in the suburbs. Not only isThe Incrediblesa fun, subversive comedy combining the high stakes of superhero comics with the low stakes of family life; it’s one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.
There have been a grand total of three attempts to bring the Fantastic Four to the big screen, andThe Incrediblesis a much better Fantastic Four movie than any of them. Its action sequences use the characters’ superpowers more creatively than most superhero movies. The emotions of the family dynamics land more effectively than most superhero team movies. Unlike most superhero films,The Incrediblesis a masterpiece.
3Blazing Saddles
Mel Brooks satirized the western genre’s penchant for whitewashing American history with hisgroundbreaking western spoofBlazing Saddles. Up to that point, most western movies had glorified white gunslingers and vilified everyone else.Blazing Saddlesrevolves around a corrupt white politician who hires a Black sheriff in the hope that he’ll run the town into the ground and allow him to pave over it with a railway. But the sheriff turns out to be so great at his job that he saves the town and brings the crooked politician and his cronies to justice.
Not only is this a perfect parody of the western genre’s whitewashing and the absurdity of racism; it’s also a great western story in its own right. Sheriff Bart is an easy hero to root for and look up to. Before it demolishes the fourth wall in its third act,Blazing Saddlesis a classic western.
2Scream
AfterHalloweenandThe Texas Chain Saw Massacreestablished the slasher genre in the ‘70s, slashers dominated horror cinema throughout the ‘80s. By the early ‘90s, the genre had seemingly been completely exhausted; its formula was familiar to audiences and the kills couldn’t get any more gruesome. And then Wes Craven came along to helmScream, which revitalized the slasher genrewith a healthy dose of postmodern self-awareness.
Screamacknowledged how familiar the slasher formula had gotten with a cast of characters who know the rules of the kind of horror movie they’re in. When a masked killer starts picking them off, they’re savvy enough to avoid all the usual traps. ButScreamisn’t just a meta meditation on the slasher genre; Craven’s direction of the horror sequences is so razor-sharp that it also ranks as one of the greatest slashers ever made.
1Hot Fuzz
After spoofing the zombie genre inShaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg tackled the “buddy cop” genre inHot Fuzz. Like many buddy cop classics before it,Hot Fuzzpairs up two mismatched detectives as they uncover a sinister criminal conspiracy. Pegg’s big-city cop Nicholas Angel is teamed up with Nick Frost’s bumbling small-town cop Danny Butterman when he’s transferred to the sleepy village of Sandford.
Hot Fuzzsatirizes all the familiar tropes and conventions of buddy cop movies, but it’s also a stronger entry in the action, comedy, and mystery genres than most of its peers. Its action is more thrilling, its characters are more well-rounded, and its plot is more compelling than 99% of the buddy cop movies out there. It stands alongside the very best the genre has to offer, like48 Hrs.andLethal Weapon.
