Scary Movie 4
Also reviewed by:
Johnny Five
The first Scary Movie, for all its success and all its fans, is pure fucking shit. Take full scenes from Scream and other modern teen horror flicks and re-enact them almost verbatim in a dramatically unfunny over-the-top fashion, and then, when the scene is dying without any sight of a punch line on the horizon, simply chuck in a picture of a penis. Or, a bucket of semen. Or, just smack a woman around repeatedly. And this made millions and millions of dollars. Hugely successful. Never mind that they were spoofing a film that was a spoof in the first place (Scream – which, for you trivia buffs, was actually originally called Scary Movie – see what they did there?).
The second film, also filled with the comic 'talent' of the Wyans brothers (see what I did there), was equally as appalling, made even worse by 1) The inclusion of Tori Spelling, and 2) The fact that the films they parodied were hardly worthy of any such comic derision. I mean, The Haunting was funny enough on its own merits without needing the Scary Movie treatment.
But people still went to see this crap, and still people laughed every time a penis popped up as a punch line, so a third entry in the series was obviously inevitable. What was a surprise however, was that the Wyans got the ass (or decided to go out on a high perhaps?) and David Zucker was brought into the fold; the man responsible for directing Airplane!, Police Squad, The Naked Gun and the very underrated Baseketball. In other words, exactly the type of dumb comedy film Scary Movie should have been. Also starring in this one is Charlie Sheen, so damn funny in the Hot Shots! films, and picking up right where he left off from those films (let’s just pretend that Two and a Half Men thing never happened).
This marriage was inspired, and the third instalment is actually watchable because of it. Sure, it’s as embarrassing as fuck to watch Zucker’s awkward attempts at 'ghetto' humour (obviously Miramax wanted to carry across some of the flavour of the Wyans’s comedy that was so prevalent in the first two, regardless of them not being involved anymore), but some of the jokes are actually, y’know, funny. Not many, but some. I can actually envision an occasion where, under the influence of various substances, I might actually be coerced to watch this again (if just to enjoy the glorious Signs piss-takes).
Which brings us to Scary Movie 4. A movie so damn unfunny and insipid that I have spent the last few paragraphs meandering over its predecessors just to avoid having to think of something to write about it.
The cinema I saw this in was deathly quiet, with only a few sporadic chortles being coughed up from an audience that I thought would have lapped it up – namely, the Scary Movie 1, 2 & 3 fans. Constructing its story from a blended mix of The Grudge, War of the Worlds, Saw, The Village, and Million Dollar Baby (apparently often overlooked as a horror film) the film misses every opportunity to hit the target with anything resembling fundamental satire, and instead opts to use the same person-gets-hit-with-something gag over and over again. The punchline penis has been replaced with an accidental headbutting – and I almost was willing them to throw a few dicks in there just for old time’s sake. It doesn’t actually feel like there was any script here, just some extravagant set-pieces built, in which the cast and crew must have just stood there stupid until one of them thought of something they could bump into/get smacked in the groin with/could fall on their head. This is a comedy for those who religiliously watch Funniest Home Videos.
Now I wasn’t expecting a Naked Gun or a Hot Shots! here, but when you have a franchise that apparently parodies other films, perhaps a joke or two about the film would be good. The ending of The Village was just crying out for the piss to be taken out of it, but instead we just get some blind jokes, and shit jokes, and then a joke about a blind girl taking a shit. I know, I know, that sounds hilarious, but its just not pulled off with the kind of finesse a blind-girl-taking-a-shit joke should be infused with.
The only reason to watch this, and indeed the first two Scary Movie films, is Anna Farris. While never hilarious, she is damn gorgeous, and seems to be begging for some good comedic material to stretch her. Why then she keeps returning for these films I have no idea. Maybe they’re the types of flicks that are fun-as-hell to make, and a nice pay-packet probably helps heal any great loss of dignity. It seems beyond my comprehension that so much money would be thrown at this franchise, and you can see it in their tremendous set replicas and special effects that almost equal the films they spoof, yet so little time is spent on coming up with anything that could barely be recognised as a joke…oh, except for the Tom Cruise on Oprah parody at the end. That’s the only time I laughed in the whole flick, and that’s more of a credit to the insanity that is Tom Cruise than it is to the comedic talents of the Scary Movie mob.