The parody movie genre is on the decline. Once a highly influential template for comedy during the 1980s, the saturated market of spoof movies that erupted in the 2000s with films like Scary Movie and Disaster Movie largely faded away in the years that followed. As the genre experiences something of a resurgence on the big screen with recent and upcoming releases of films like The Naked Gun reboot and Scary Movie 6, one of the last great movies of the parody genre‘s golden age just started streaming on Hulu 25 years after its release.
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By most accounts, Not Another Teen Movie was the final good parody. Hitting screens in December 2001, it arrived just as the parody genre was shifting from clever satire into a period of critically panned, lazily made spoof films. 25 years later, the iconic movie joined Hulu’s streaming library on April 1st. For those who need a refresher, Not Another Teen Movie parodies 1980s and 1990s teen films like She’s All That, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Pretty in Pink, and centers on popular jock Jake Wyler, who bets he can transform Janey Briggs, the “unpopular ugly girl,” into prom queen.
Not Another Teen Movie Perfectly Skewered Coming-Of-Age Films To Become a Cult Classic
Not Another Teen Movie absolutely understood the assignment. Unlike later parodies that vaguely referenced pop culture, the film targeted a specific genre, ‘80s and ‘90s teen films, and perfectly dismantled every cliché and trope. The film’s often crude, and self-aware mockery of dozens of teen movies targeted everything from The Breakfast Club with library detention scenes and the inclusion of original cast member Paul Gleason to American Pie’s desperate virgin storyline and iconic food-related gags with a level of detail that showed the creative team understood and loved the source material, transforming predictable formulas into over-the-top comedy gold.
The movie wasn’t initially appreciated upon its release, though. The film was only a modest box office success, grossing $66 million worldwide against an estimated $15 million production budget, and it was mostly met with poor reviews from critics and audiences. Initially dismissed as a crude, formulaic, and inferior entry in the parody genre, similar to the low-brow spoof movies that followed it, Not Another Teen Movie only holds a 32% critic score and 55% audience on Rotten Tomatoes. In the decades since, the movie’s reputation has significantly improved, Not Another Teen Movie transforming from something largely viewed as a trashy movie into a certified cult classic that is one of the last truly funny spoof films.
What’s New on Hulu?
Not Another Teen Movie is one of several films now streaming on Hulu following a rush of arrivals to kickstart the month. So far this April, Hulu has added titles like 50 First Dates, The Devil Wears Prada, Monster House, Napoleon Dynamite, Pacific Rim: Uprising, the main Shrek movies, the original film Pizza Movie, and Primitive War, among dozens of others.
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Image Courtesy of Paramount
