Scary Movie 4

Scary Movie 4
Directed by: David Zucker, USA, 2006
Comedy, 89min
Distributed by: Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Story:
Fourth instalment to the Scary Movie franchise finds poor Cindy Campbell [Anna Farris] and her trusty companion Brenda [Regina Hall] fighting off Japanese child ghosts, an alien invasion end the enigmatic Jigsaw.

Me:
I love these movies; especially if you are a genre fan you can spot and appreciate all the spoofs that they are filling the movies with. The two first movies in the franchise, directed by the Wayans' brothers are great, the third one, also directed by Zucker was a disaster, but here he seems to have found his groove again. The main story is a weird blending of The Grudge, War of the Worlds, and Saw. You know what you are getting when you sit down to a Zucker movie, nothing is sacred and every thing is having the piss taken out of it. Farris is great as usual, and the main movie parodied this time is Takashi Shimizu’s The Grudge and to be honest, after six instalments of Ju-on – The Grudge 2000-2006, these parodies are what make this movie for me. We all know exactly what should happen next and Zucker just gets crazy with it. I honestly laughed aloud several times watching these hilarious Grudge parodies. There’s even one real shock in the movie. I never would have guessed it but it’s in there and it really shocks you hard. Good job. Loaded with movie references out over the main three mentioned above like The Village, Bareback Mountain, and Million Dollar Baby. There’s even a Tom Cruise making an ass of himself on Oprah parody that is brilliant. There is also a cast full of great names like Charlie Sheen, Bill Pullman, Carmen Electra, Chris Elliot (yeah he’s back!), Molly Shannon, Leslie Nielsen, Michael Madsen, Shaquille O’Neal and even Dr. Phil. Regina Hall is also back as the sex crazed Brenda is still hilarious, especially in the Village and Saw sketches where she manages to twist everything to a sexual innuendo. No I have to hand it to Zucker, he’s rescued this series from a certain death after the third part. Good job, and thanks, it was a long time since I laughed so much.

Image:
Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1

Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1, English, German, French or Spanish audio tracks are optional, Subtitles in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, English, German, French, Spanish Islandic and Dutch are also available. And yes, they even subtitle the commentary track.

Extras:
Loads of extras round off this great disc. Commentary track by director Zucker, producer Robert K. Weiss and writer Craig Mazin, a bunch of deleted scenes, bloopers The Man Behind the Laugh focusing on David Zucker, Zany Spoof Humour – Zucker Style about his brand of comedy, The Visual Effects of Scary Movie about the impressive effects, a short featurette on all the rappers and actors who have cameos in the movie, a short bit about Craig Bierko’s Tom Cruise at Oprah skit, and to round it off a conversation with Zucker, Weiss and Mazin