Scary Movie 4
Directed by: David Zucker
Written by: Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams
Starring: Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Simon Rex, Dr Phillip McGraw, Carmen Electra
It's not often that we reach the 4th movie in a series. Harry Potter is the only recent example I can think of. The Scary Movie "trilogy" hasn't gotten this far as a result of its quality. Rather, it's the fact that more and more bad movies have been made and the temptation to spoof these films is too hard to resist.
This time around, the films under the microscope include War Of The Worlds, The Village, Saw, The Grudge, Million Dollar Baby and Brokeback Mountain. There are also some parodies of George W. Bush and Tom Cruise which will be enjoyed by many.
This type of film is nothing new and it's safe to say it won't be winning any Oscars next year. That said, it will tickle your funny bone on occasions. It's nice to sit back and enjoy a simple "popcorn movie" which doesn't require any thought whatsoever.
Disappointingly, the film only spoofs a small number of recently Hollywood releases. I can think of many more films which deserve a roasting (particularly in the romantic genre). If they had of mixed Scary Movie 4 with the recently released Date Movie, then we might have had a film with more substance and more laughs.
My all-time favourite spoof comedy is Flying High (known in America as Airplane!) which was first released in 1980. I'm always recommending it and if you haven't seen it, please do so! Both Scary Movie 4 and Flying High were directed by David Zucker and you can see his sense of humour hasn't changed. He doesn't have as much material to work with but he still manages to weave it some great one-liners. Other Zucker films include the first two Naked Gun movies and Scary Movie 3.
The Scary Movie series isn't deteriorating at the same rate of say, the Police Academy series, but you have to wonder if there's enough jokes left in the bag for a fifth edition.