Who dies next? Hopefully the Scary Movie Series
If Scary Movie 4 is indeed the “fourth and final installment of the trilogy” as the ads proclaim, then I will rest easy. After the abysmal failure that was part three, it’s hard to say why number four was even made at all. But it’s here. It has Shaq and Dr. Phil. And it is, at the very east, slightly better than Scary Movie 3. That's not saying much.
This time we’re looking at a combination of War of the Worlds, The Grudge, The Village and Saw as the driving forces behind the latest Scary Movie, but soon enough you’ll also see bits taken from Fahrenheit 9/11, Brokeback Mountain, and Million Dollar Baby. Cindy Campbell (Anna Farris, back for a fourth time and also in Brokeback Mountain) takes a job at an evil-feeling house, haunted by the ghost of a young boy. She falls for War of the Worlds hero Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko) living next door, and when alien Tri-Pods begin their attack on humanity she must travel to a remote village in order to find the secret to stopping the invaders. Tom tries to keep his children safe, except for repeatedly abusing his daughter. But it’s accidental, so it’s funny (just kidding about that last part).
After a freaky shower experience back in the house, Cindy tries to say hello to the ghostly boy, but he is unresponsive. She then switches to Japanese (with English subtitles of course). “Hello,” gets her nowhere fast. What about, “Hurro?” That does it. Soon the exchange becomes a mishmash of strung-together Japanese words and brand names all with subtitles to let people know what the characters are actually saying. Now, I’m not one to identify everything (or much of anything, really) that’s offensive as bad about a movie, but this simply isn’t funny. Way short of parody or satire, someone might explain to the filmmakers that having movie tie-ins and then simply having the cast act stupid does not make for a spoof nor is it sufficient for good comedy.
Not all humor needs to be subtle, but when it takes on an attitude that sounds like Peter Griffin from Family Guy continually goading us it gets pretty annoying. Newsflash to director David Zucker (Airplane!): The chick with her tongue hanging out is not so incredibly clever that you need to show office workers using her to seal envelopes a second time. We got it when it the first time and we don’t need to see it again, and the fact a scene like this is highlighted marks just how weak most of the laughs are.
Thank goodness for Leslie Nielsen. In the Fahrenheit 9/11 tie-in, the US President (Nielsen) is listening intently to a grade school story about a pet duck when he is given the news that aliens have invaded and are killing everyone in their path. It seems of minor importance as the duck’s fate is as yet still unknown to the president and thus more important. This scene and the one he does in the buff at a UN Council meeting give us back a bit of that hilarious feeling from the Naked Gun series, but that’s not nearly enough to save the film.
From the first moment we see Charlie Sheen in Scary Movie 4, he’s trying to escape by killing himself. While not willing to go to quite the same lengths, I was glad to see the end of it, too.
