“SCARY MOVIE 4” (2006)

Starring: Anna Faris & Craig Bierko
Written by Craig Mazin and Jim Abrahams
Directed by David Zucker

Polly Staffle Rating: ***

Spoofs usually don’t turn out very well. They’re kind of like Super Bowls. Even when they seem like they have potential, they just end up sucking. Surprisingly, “Scary Movie 4” is pretty damn good. It opens terribly with a “Saw” send-up and closes awfully with a spoof on Tom Cruise jumping the couch, but otherwise works. It even has a few moments that are hysterically funny.

I admit I’m not the biggest aficionado of the “Scary Movie” franchise. Even though I’m a fan of the Wayans brothers – Keenan Ivory, Shawn and Marlon - I actually hated the first one. It was horribly bad. It didn’t work because it was basically a rehash of “Scream” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” Those two films were essentially spoofs of the horror genre themselves, so “Scary Movie” ended up being a film making fun of films that made fun of films.

I liked Anna Faris, however, and thought she had potential. So I was pretty open to the Wayans brothers and Faris giving a sequel a go. “Scary Movie 2” was a lot better than the original. It left room for improvement, but it had its moments. I think I was in the minority on liking this one as it grossed the least of the series at the box office and ended up being the last movie with the involvement of the Wayans’ family tree.

Then came the third one. Spoof director David Zucker was brought in and given a budget of $48 million, which was more than double the first film. Zucker – one of the minds behind “Airplane,” “Top Secret,” “The Naked Gun” and the television show “Police Squad” - toned down the raunchiness, spoofed films outside the horror genre and added Leslie Neilson to the mix. I absolutely hated the results. I was done with seeing these films and hoped they would go away. But a PG-13 rating brought in younger crowds and this disaster ended up being a blockbuster.

Zucker was brought back for the fourth film and rumored to have had a budget as big as $100 million. His partner on “Airplane” and “Top Secret” Jim Abrahams (“Hot Shots,” “Mafia” and “Kentucky Fried Movie”) was brought in to help with the script. Needless to say, I could care less and went in assuming I would hate this one. It’s the fourth film in six years. What the hell could it offer? The first thing the film serves us is Dr. Phil and Shaquille O’Neal playing themselves. Shaq hits his head a bunch of times (see, that’s supposed to be funny because he’s tall) and Dr. Phil screams and hollers (that’s supposed to be funny because he’s a loud mouth). Then the film starts. I thought to myself, “Oh man, this is going to be painful. Didn’t people learn with ‘Kazaam’ not to put Shaq in a movie?” Luckily once this film settles down into its story, Shaq’s nowhere to be found and some humor kicks in.

The main reason I think this film works is it has actual funny moments that would be laughed at in any film no matter their context. Two scenes specifically stand out. One is Cindy (Faris) giving an elderly woman a sponge bath and accidentally using a full bed pan instead of soap and water. The other features a blind character played by Carmen Electra mistaking a room full of people as a bathroom and stripping down to lingerie to take an explosive bowel movement.

“Scary Movie 4” also has better material to work with than any of the other three films. Here the story relies heavily on “War of the Worlds,” “The Grudge,” “Saw,” and “The Village.” All but “War of the Worlds” are excellent films in my book and even it was a fun watch. The film essentially switches back and fourth from those four movies.

Cindy basically takes on the role of Sarah Michelle Geller’s character in “The Grudge,” while her love interest Tom (Craig Bierko) has the Tom Cruise part from “War of the Worlds.” Tom lives next door to the elderly woman Cindy is taking care of. So just as he notices huge tri-ipods walking the streets zapping people and the malfunction of all means of transportation, including bikes and skate boards, a spooky little Asian kid meows in the attic and contorts and tumbles his way through the house next door.

Later, Cindy ends up in a small secluded town that is terrorized by monsters nobody speaks of. Here Chris Elliot plays the mentally challenged Adrien Brody character from “The Village” for a few good laughs, followed by Carmen Electra’s take on the Bryce Dallas Howard role. My favorite character to get bashed, however, would be the one of Dakota Fanning. Though I am a fan of Dakota and think she is a wonderful actress, I hated her in “War of the Worlds.” She was extremely annoying in that role. Conchita Campbell gets the honors of lampooning Fanning’s Rachel. Looking the part, Campbell’s character is struck by lightning, covered in dirt, hit in the head repeatedly and completely wiped out in the film’s only flashes of laughable slapstick

Lots of good genre material from the past several years was left untouched, so my guess is a fifth will be on its way. One tagline I read was “The fourth and final chapter in the trilogy,” but we all know how those movie posters can lie as the original boasted, “No Mercy. No Shame. No Sequel.”

As usual with Zucker, non genre movies were also goofed on in “Scary Movie 4.” Some of these spoofs are quite good. “Million Dollar Baby” is knocked out with Mike Tyson or a damn good impersonator in drag, chomping on ears and breaking necks. “Brokeback Mountain” also takes a pounding as a dreadlocked Anthony Anderson and DeRay Davis go on the down low in a tent. These two scenes essentially play like great “Saturday Night Live” skits. President George Bush is also poked fun at for seeming to be more interested in a children’s book than the events that were unfolding on September 11, but they let him off too easy for my tastes. I was disappointed there weren’t any Michael Moore or “Fahrenheit 9/11” references. “The Passion of the Christ,” “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith,” and “The March of the Penguins” were all unharmed as well. But there’s always next time.

- CCF, April 2006