“Scary Movie 4” (The Weinstein Company)
The scariest thing about “Scary Movie 4” is that it has a PG-13 rating. This movie is so gross, so vulgar, so filled with profanity and nudity that it seems a natural for the more restrictive R rating; but in this day of almost anything goes it got the lesser one. And as for being a funny movie, well that is a matter of opinion.
David Zucker who directed this movie is a brilliant man when it comes to comedy, but in “Scary Movie 4” he lets gross humor and crudeness rule the day. All of his cleverness is buried beneath the trash he puts up on the screen. Maybe there will be a segment of the audience that won’t mind joke after joke of bathroom humor but there will also be a solid segment that will.
The movie once again focuses on Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), a sweet young woman who goes to take care of an elderly person (Cloris Leachman) who lives in a house possessed by the spirit of a young boy. Next door to this house lives Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), a divorced father of two. Cindy and Tom are instantly attracted to each other but an invasion by alien beings gets in the way of their romance.
Later Cindy meets up with her old friend Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall). These two get involved with a bizarre character who has on a white faced mask with circles in its cheeks. He threatens their lives but they outsmart him.
These sequences poke fun at the scripts from “The Grudge,” “War of the Worlds” and “Saw.” Perhaps the movie getting the worst skewering and involving the grossest moments is “The Village.” You will never look at Carmen Electra the same again.
When you see the situations the actors find themselves in, you have to pity them. Faris, Hall and other younger stars are just getting started so they don’t have the same choices as more established actors. But why do Leachman, James Earl Jones and Leslie Nielsen subject themselves to such humiliation and degradation
The jokes are so sloppy and generally in such bad taste, that the moments of bright humor are overlooked. Surely the man behind “Airplane” could have come up with some better comedy routines than these. This film always aims for the cheap shot rather than the truly funnier alternative.
As stated the movie gets a surprisingly lax PG-13 rating rather than the more deserved R.
There will be a crowd of people who will rush to see this movie but as word gets out the attendance will (hopefully) decrease. “Scary Movie 4” is one sequel too many for this franchise, and let’s hope it is now able to “R.I.P.”
I scored “Scary Movie 4” a grossed out 2 out of 10.
