Amelia Atkins, Business Manager
posted on April 20, 2006

For slapstick, MAD Magazine-style movie spoofs, you can’t get much better than the works of director David Zucker.
His “Airplane!” defined a genre, Top Secret perfected it and Naked Gun” furthered it.
Zucker has assembled the respectably amusing and juvenile “Scary Movie 4.”
However, the movie is far from being dubbed a classic. Yet, the movie wasn’t a complete flop.
The plot quite cleverly combines elements of “The Grudge,” “War of the Worlds,” and “Saw” with parodies of “The Village,” “Million Dollar Baby” and “Brokeback Mountain” thrown in for good measure.
“Scary Movie” veteran Cindy Campbell, the under-appreciated Anna Faris, is now a home-hospice nurse caring for a catatonic old woman whose house is haunted by an androgynous Asian boy-ghost.
Meanwhile, alien tripods, which look like iPods, begin killing people, and Tom and Cindy must save the day.
Actors who participated in the other movies such as Charlie Sheen, Regina Hall, Anthon Anderson and Simon Rex show up here and there, too, and all continue to revel in the silliness.
The jokes are hit-or-miss, but they occur in Zucker’s typical rapid-fire pattern, so you’ll catch a bit of comedy shrapnel no matter what.
The humor emphasizes quantity over quality, but the average isn’t too bad.
The movie earns a C+.