Scary Movie 6 Costume Designer on Industry Changes, Influences & More

Posted in: Horror, Movies, Paramount Pictures | Tagged: Scary Movie, scary movie 6

Scary Movie 6 Costume Designer on Industry Changes, Influences & More

Costume designer Ariyela Wald-Cohain (Scary Movie 6) spoke to us about the uphill battle of industry changes, favorites, influences & more.

Published Fri, 31 Jul 2026 20:17:09 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Scary Movie 6 costume designer Ariyela Wald-Cohain breaks down how faster tools and smaller budgets are reshaping film work.
• Wald-Cohain explains why today’s industry demands higher production value on tighter prep times for Scary Movie 6.
• The Scary Movie 6 designer shares her love for fantasy and sci-fi, and why world-building remains her dream challenge.
• Ariyela Wald-Cohain discusses her path into costume design and the influence of icons like Ruth E. Carter and Sandy Powell.

Costume designer Ariyela Wald-Cohain has seen it all in her over 25 years of experience in the industry in a wide range of genres, and surprisingly, one of her most prominent is parodies, which not only takes the ingenuity of creating the costumes for the original characters, but also reverse-engineers the design of projects you're spoofing. Among her earlier works are the parodies TV: The Movie (2006) and The 41-Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It (2010). Her latest in her frequent partnership with Marlon Wayans and frequent collaborator, director Michael Tiddes, is Scary Movie 6 or Scary Movie (2026), not to be confused with the 2000 original Keenan Ivory Wayans film of the same name, which harkens back to the 2022 Scream, which was the fifth film of the franchise, but dropped the numbering.

The sixth film features the return of original stars Marlon and Shawn Wayans (who co-wrote the film with Keenan Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans, and Rick Alvarez), Anna Faris and Regina Hall reprising their respective roles as Shorty, Ray, Cindy, and Brenda, respectively, and finds them terrorized again by Ghostface, with other familiar faces from the franchise returning. Wald-Cohain spoke with Bleeding Cool about the biggest industry changes she's observed over the years and the inherent uphill battle to stay relevant, her favorite genres to work on, and biggest influences she has since joining the industry.

Scary Movie 6 Costume Designer Ariyela Wald-Cohain on Current Industry Struggles, Passion for Building Sci-Fi and Fantasy Worlds, and Influences

Bleeding Cool: As an industry veteran, what's been the biggest difference for you in terms of the most dramatic changes when you started compared to what you have to work with now? Have things gone easier or harder?

Wald-Cohain: That's a great question. I think both. I think it is easier in terms of having these digital platforms that are super helpful. We have things like Amazon for shopping, and things are so fast, and the turnarounds are really quick. On the other hand, the industry has taken such a dive. Work is sparser, and a lot of people are out of work. That's not fun to know that your crew members are not working. If I go out of town, I can't hire my crew who's local, not that my crew there was not amazing; they were.

I've got a crew here. I think the demand, since of the digital age where everything's so fast, on us is much higher and much faster. Our prep times are lower, our budgets are lower, yet everybody wants the heightened production value that you can get, so the expectations are higher. What they're willing to give us in support and money is getting lower and lower, because we create magic and make it seem so easy.

We've kind of done this to ourselves, because of anything they ask for us, we somehow magically make it happen. They keep demanding what they're used to, so I think it's a give and take. The world evolves, and we need to evolve with it, all these changes with AI, and so on. We need to find tools that can help us enhance our job and possibly make it easier, but the work itself is the work. Running a department, overseeing your crew, and making everything on budget, on time, and is creative as you can. The job, the work is the work, and it hasn't changed. That's something that will always be there. Yeah, and I love working with people and collaborating, and I feel like that won't go away either.

Do you have a particular favorite genre? Do you prefer TV or film? Is there still a genre that you haven't done yet that you wish to tackle in the future?

My favorite dream genre is fantasy and sci-fi. I love building worlds; even here, there was a certain world of 'Scary Movie,' which had its limitations and restrictions. I've designed some smaller pieces of sci-fi and fantasy, but I would love to do a big budget where everything- anything- goes, and somebody just gives us creative freedom to design, explore, and build an amazing world. Honestly, every project is a wonderful opportunity to dive into research. It doesn't matter if it's period, comedy, or horror; there are always pieces of it that are always new to me, and I'm always learning. As long as I'm learning, growing, and working with great people, I feel very blessed to be doing what I do.

What are your biggest influences?

In terms of the costume design?

What made you want to go into costume design?

Nobody inspired me, because I was not really exposed to a lot of TV and film as a kid; even though I did, when I saw it, I loved it. I came into it because I love designing stuff, changing clothes for myself, and then realized it could be a career. Now that I'm in the professional world, Ruth E. Carter is an amazing designer. I love everything she does; the heightened detail is inspiring. There are so many, like Sandy Powell and Colleen Atwood, that you can see a screenshot of their work and you know it's theirs. The elevated detail and precision, and every piece of clothing that's aged is aged perfectly. There are many designers that I aspire to be like or aspire to work on projects like theirs. I'm really just happy to be doing what I do, and I love working with everybody.

Paramount's Scary Movie 6 is available on digital.

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