Film Review: Scary Movie 4 (2006)

SYNOPSIS:

Cindy finds out the house she lives in is haunted by a little boy and goes on a quest to find out who killed him and why. Also, Alien “Tr-iPods” are invading the world and she has to uncover the secret in order to stop them.

REVIEW:

Fresh off the franchise, Scary Movie ..movies offer a sort of retrospect on some of the best horror events leading up to it. Full of iconic moments, this 4th offering brings together some of the better elements of War of the Worlds, The Grudge, The Village, and SAW. In fact, the main premise intertwines much of War of the Worlds premise with The Grudge which sparks a love interest between Cindy (Anna Faris) and Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko)

We begin as a recently unemployed Cindy Campbell takes on a caretaker job to work in a cursed home. This of course is a replay on the Grudge film. Next door, her neighbor Tom is busy battling alien take overs in an identical movie set that sparks the recent War of the Worlds remake. In this sense, there is an odd displacement of the Asian grudge environment and the urban WOTW environment. The scenes play out pretty close to the originals while also mixing it up into a hilarious mash-up of sorts. The jokes are cheap one-liners that follows in the footsteps of its “Airplane”-style influences. What makes these films great is that they do so while poking fun at America style horror scenarios in the process.

Gags are dished out around every corner even including one Leslie Nielsen in the role of President Baxter Harris who does a great segment where he is stripped naked per a laser beam and continues to give his speech to a horrified crowd of political constituents. The best moment though goes to the final segment which has Tom doing a great Tom Cruise impersonation as he professes his love for his recent partner. This classic moment which is sealed with an Oprah impersonator reenacts the classic Cruise appearance. It gets even better when the 2 of them exchange blows in a hilarious spoof on life and television.

The cast is fun to watch including alot of cameos, repeat appearances and roles with appearances by Carmen Electra, Michael Madsen, Molly Shannon, Cloris Leachman, Bill Pullman and Chris Elliott.

Directed by David Zucker, you can expect much of the same humor style as the previous Scary Movie entries. The film cleverly begins with Dr. Phil chained up per SAW 1 along with Shaquille O’Neal. The SAW moments sort of sneak their way into the main storyline just to add a comedic flair to the memorable iconic instances. If you leak this style of humor, your gonna love this once to add to the collection.

Scary Movie 4 (2006)