Scary Movie 4
Studio: The Weinstein Company
Rated: PG-13
Website: http://www.scarymovie.com/
Release Date: 2006-04-21
Cast: Molly Shannon, Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Leslie Nielsen
Director: David Zucker
Screenwriter: Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams
WorkNameSort: Scary Movie 4
Our Rating: 3.00
The shielding of this unspectacular but hardly disastrous comedy from critics shows that the studios can no longer distinguish between a good bad movie and a bad bad movie. What was considered so mortifying in David Zucker’s haunted clearing house of sight gags that it warranted the protective cloak of a press-screening blackout, when the execrable Date Movie practically came to us gift-wrapped? Sure, SM4 tries too hard to get by on attitude, weaving scenarios from The Grudge, War of the Worlds, The Village and SAW into a lurching parade of errant uppercuts and messy secretions. But you don’t go to a genre parody expecting consistency – just the security of knowing that every three gags that fall flat on their faces will be followed by one that brings home the bacon. As for complaints that Zucker has kept the franchise alive by whitening it, so be it: It’s worth feeling like Pat Boone to watch the terrific Anna Faris stumble her way through another set of unnatural events that’s only slightly spookier than her own idiocy.
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2006.