Not Another Scary Movie (Scary Movie 4 (DVD))

Member Name: rleigh

Product:	Scary Movie 4 (DVD)
Date:	17/11/06 (232 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A couple of funny moments

Disadvantages: Poor extras, A waste of 86 minutes

Having been a fan of the first three films I was somewhat reluctant to see this fourth film in the series when it was released as my gut feeling was that this would be a complete disaster of a film. Having read mixed views on the film when it was released, once it came out on DVD I just couldn't resist and felt the need to complete my collection even if merely to satisfy my own collection urges. I sat down to watch this one well prepared to be proven wrong about my gut feeling that the film would be a poor one, however ultimately I was right and 'Scary Movie 4' really is the worst of the lot. I say the worst of the lot, but this doesn't really do my feelings justice as I really liked the first three films but this one just didn't deliver. As ever, there are a handful of cameo appearances made from the likes of Carmen Electra, Shaquille O'Neal, and 'Scary Movie 3' main men Simon Rex and Charlie Sheen, however these are not enough to satisfy our needs and wants of another 'Scary Movie' classic. As was the case with the last film, David Zucker has once again taken to the chair as director, however this time round it just doesn't work.


- The Plot -

Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) has moved on from the news reporter job that she had in the third film and here she becomes a full-time live in nurse to a lady who lives alone in a strange house. As the film progresses, Cindy begins to witness paranormal activities going on here and discovers that the house that she is living in is in fact haunted and sees the ghost of a young boy creeping through the house. Next door to Cindy lives docks worker Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), a divorced man and father to children Rachel (Conchita Campbell), and Bobbie (Beau Mirchoff). In this film we begin to see Cindy and Tom become close, however after alien tripods try to take over the world, Cindy makes it her mission to save the day having been told some information about the tripods by the ghost boy. After finding Brenda (Regina Hall), she and Cindy go on a journey in order to save the world, while Tom goes his separate way with children Rachel and Bobbie.


- My Opinion -

Although I've given a rough plot here this is true, the truth of the matter is that even writing that short amount was hard to do as the film is entirely lacking in any sort of plot line. Whereas the previous offerings had flow and the films that were brought in made sense, here we have a number of films that enter into the mix as if this is a sketch show rather than a proper feature film and 'Scary Movie 4' just generally feels extremely disjointed. We are unable to follow any vague trace of a plot, and instead we are guided through some poorly put together spoofing of films such as 'The Grudge', 'The Village', 'War Of The Worlds', and 'Brokeback Mountain'. Whereas before it was a pleasure to see which films had been brought into the mix, here you are left hoping that the film does not try and take on any of your favourites in case of ruining them for you.

The first time I watched this film through, it raised a few laughs with me however a lot of the time I was sat there waiting for something to happen and it just never did. After finishing watching the film through for the first time I felt fairly satisfied having just watched 'Land Of The Dead' as it certainly appealed to me more than that film what with this one occasionally making me laugh rather than being entirely bland throughout, however it just doesn't have the magic of the first films. I know that some will argue that none of these films are particularly funny, however for me the first films were, this one just isn't on the same level. When 'Scary Movie 2' was released I was rather anxious as they could well have rehashed the first film, however that's not what they did and so the film was good as a result of it. With the third film, with a change of director you always knew that the film was going to have a different feel to it however again I found it to be a good film. This time round, David Zucker seems to have made the mistake that could have been made with the second in that he seems to have just gone and completely ripped off the third film and it is almost as if he has tried to release the same film twice.

With 'Scary Movie 4' there are of course once again the popular culture links brought in, however they're just not funny this time round. When the tripods from the 'War of the Worlds' attack for instance, the president is in a school listening to a story with some young children, a scene reminiscent of that in which George Bush found himself in after hearing the news of the twin towers. Although a potentially amusing concept to question the presidents strength and credibility, you just get the feeling that it's all been done before and done better in fact. As well as this, once again we have Michael Jackson being made fun of. After being zapped by the tripods (something which led to the disintegration of most people), Michael Jackson is left standing there black and makes a wise crack about going back to his original colour. After being zapped again, he disappears all but his nose. This will have raised a laugh or two, however it is all too similar to the end sequence which was cut from the third film where a fade to black comes into the centre, taking Michael's nose off in the process meaning that we are then left with this on screen while everything else remains black. Sorry, but you can't make the exact same joke twice and expect for no one to pick up on it, that's just ridiculous. It pretty much sums this film up in that anything that wasn't good enough to make the third film more than makes the grade this time round.

The jokes on display here are not of the standard that they were in the first three films, in fact that's a lie as in actual fact a lot of the jokes here are merely copied from the third film and used once more. Although they may have been funny the first time round, it's never going to be particularly amusing when they're rehashed and shoved into a 'new' film 3 years down the line. Although there are some genuinely funny moments, most of the time the film just fails to impress and leaves you wishing that you hadn't just wasted your money on this atrocity. One such throwback from the third film leads onto a new joke in which Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) states of what he has just said that 'I'm putting that on Myspace'. I previously stated that the Weakest Link joke in the third film made me cringe, however for me this one was even worse. The film has sunk so low this time round that they have to rely on the viewers knowledge of a social networking website, which will potentially go right over the heads of their core fan base. For me, the joke didn't go over my head but at the same time it just wasn't funny and once again made me question the decision to leave such a poor line in the film. Having said that, I question quite a lot of lines in this film, in fact I pretty much question why David Zucker saw it fit to release the same film twice - not a smart move for someone responsible for some of the greatest spoofs of our time.

What with jokes that have been used before and others that just plain aren't funny, we have more to be found in 'Scary Movie 4' with completely disgusting jokes such as where one man saws his own foot off, and another where the old lady in the haunted house gets sponged down with urine, amongst others that are a bit too near the knuckle for my liking. For example, at one point in the film, a terrorist runs out into the street covered in explosives, however when he presses the button to activate them it doesn't work and instead he gets mobbed and beaten up by a sea of people fleeting from the tripod attack. Sorry, but given the terrorist attacks that have taken place in recent years, this just isn't funny and is likely to offend a lot more people than its going to make laugh. A lot of people have lost family members as a result of terrorist attacks and I just feel that it was in poor taste that this sequence was included here.

Although obviously in my opinion not a very good film at all, there are some plus points to come out of this film. For instance, once again I feel that Anna Faris has put in a great performance and although she is not really given many particularly good lines to make anything of, she plays her part well and shows her calibre as an actress in that even in a film where redeeming qualities are few and far between, she still manages to stand out by putting in a good performance and often overcoming the poor script that has been attributed to her. Regina Hall I feel has also put in another good performance, having played an extremely minor part in 'Scary Movie 3' in that she did not appear for that long before being killed off, it was questionable as to whether or not she would once again be included in this one, however she is of course here and plays her part as Brenda as well as ever. No matter how bad the 'Scary Movie' series becomes, I think fans will always be glad to see these faces in the films as they are ones that have been their since the beginning, and although their best bet career wise would really be to stay well clear, if they weren't in them then there would really be no reason to watch the films whatsoever. As a general rule, the few laughs that we are provided with in this film come from Anna and Regina so without them who knows how awful this film could have been.

There will probably be some 'Scary Movie' fans that argue that this is another competent offering, however for me the film just didn't deliver and so I feel that this is the worst in the series by far and while the other films that have been released impressed me, this one failed on every level possible. There is no sense of storyline whatsoever, and although this has been the case in the past with these films - this time it just didn't work and there was just too much going on at once for you to really appreciate the film as a feature length. With multiple storylines emerging simultaneously, this is not an intelligently crafted piece of cinema but instead a poorly put together send up of Hollywood blockbusters which raises few laughs. 'Scary Movie 4' is an embarrassment to the series and had Zucker tried something new with this one rather than reusing all of his jokes from the third film then this may well have been a competent offering, however as it stands it's not worth wasting your time over. With the fifth film billed to be completely different from the first four films in the series, it will have to be pretty damn impressive if it is to make up for this blunder of a fourth film and whether or not it manages to do so remains to be seen. If you're looking for a rental DVD to provide you with a few cheap laughs for an evening then look no further than the first three films; while this one doesn't make particularly bad viewing on first screening, at the same time you'll want to gain back the 86 minutes of your life that you wasted watching this film so it really isn't worthwhile. Having splashed out £12.99 for this on release, I really wish I hadn't as this one was a severe waste of money and although it completes my collection nicely as they sit in a row on my desk top, I really wish I'd avoided this one and had purely happy memories of the 'Scary Movie' series.


- Extras -

~ Deleted Scenes ~

There are 15 deleted scenes here, and before watching them you just have to wonder what could be so bad that it wouldn't even make it into a film of this poor quality. What we get here is a series of alternate scenes which are somehow worse than the originals which makes me wonder just why they thought that people would want to be given 15 alternate scenes of a worse standard than the sub-standard offering we were given with the film itself. There are a couple of amusing moments here, however a lot of the time you are just left blank faced and in question of why they bothered. There was one scene here that appealed to me here in which Brenda gets squashed by an H-500 steel crate that falls from the sky, however this didn't appeal to me because it was a good scene; it appealed to me because she has been killed off in every other of the films so far so it was only right for her to get killed off once more in this fourth film. Obviously they opted to break with tradition in the end and have Brenda survive which is hardly surprising given how awful this death sequence was. While her previous deaths had all been amusing and well put together, had she ended the fourth film with this then it would have been somewhat of an insult really so I am definitely glad that they chose to break with tradition here if this is the only death sequence that they had lined up.

~ Bloopers ~

I was looking forward to this as a redeeming feature as having been reasonably impressed with the bloopers section on the last DVD, I thought that once again this feature may have raised a few laughs. How wrong could I have been - while watching this through it didn't raise so much of a smile. The feature bored me quite frankly and I just feel as though they could have come up with some better 'bloopers' as the ones that are on display here just seem forced. It's almost as if someone got rid of the cuts that went wrong so they had to go back and recreate them. The 'bloopers' here certainly don't feel natural anyway, that's for sure.

~ The Man Behind The Laugh (Director, David Zucker) ~

Here it is revealed that all scenes in the film were shot until David Zucker found them to be funny which leads me to believe that he has an awful sense of humour. If he genuinely found the film he has created here funny then I just don't see how he's managed to make so many other great comedy films as what we have here is not in the slightest bit a funny film. Although there are some vaguely amusing parts in the film, a lot of the time it just isn't funny, so this feature was a bit of a strange one for me as if scenes are re-shot until Zucker finds them to be hilarious then why are so many of them just so awful. We gain insight into Zucker's style by some of the cast such as Anna Faris and Charlie Sheen who back up the fact that things are shot until he finds them funny, however I just don't believe that the man responsible for great films such as 'Airplane' the 'Naked Gun' films and of course 'Scary Movie 3' could possibly find this tragic film to be funny. I feel that this feature has a pretty fitting title in being 'laugh' rather than 'laughs' in that one laugh is about all this film has to offer.

~ Zany Spoof Humour - Zucker Style ~

This is such a boring feature, it's almost as if they're trying to reassure us that Zucker did keep with the style that he has created over the years; that of the 'Zany Spoof' style of humour. Once again we are shown Zucker laughing at the filming which is taking place and we have various cast members from the film talking about Zucker's style and how he implements it into all of his films. For me this feature just doesn't wash as although I would consider myself to be a fan of a lot of Zucker's work - 'Scary Movie 4' just wasn't funny as it uses a tired, dated style of humour which we have seen done before and seen done better. 'Zucker Style' to me would generally conjure up an idea of a hilarious spoof style film, however to say that 'Scary Movie 4' is of this style would be an insult to a man who has created so many hilarious films over the years.

~ The Visual Effects of Scary Movie 4 ~

The problem here is once again that the visual effects used in the film aren't particularly interesting here, so talking about them is just as dull and doesn't really make for particularly interesting viewing. The only interesting thing we get to see here is seeing how the tripods were done as I felt that this was something that was really well done in this film and one of the elements that emerged from the film as impressive, albeit a minor detail. Its fairly interesting to see how the tripod sequences were created, however this is the only worthwhile aspect about this feature so once again the 'extras' fail to impress with this little offering.

~ Feature Commentary With Director David Zucker, Producer Robert K. Weiss & Writer/Producer Craig Mazin ~

In the last film this was a particularly impressive feature, revealing some interesting facts about 'Scary Movie 3' as well as being funny in itself. Last time round this feature worked extremely well alongside the film and I feel that once again this is a fairly successful feature despite the poor nature of the film itself. Having not seen 'Saw', they reveal here that the set that they use at the beginning of the film is actually the same one as was used in 'Saw' and they actually sold the set back to them afterwards for use in the recently released 'Saw III'. Having not seen the theatrical release of this film, I was not sure what was so 'Extended and Unsanitized' about this version, however throughout the film the people responsible for it will here tell us when scenes are being shown that were not included in the original release. Amongst others, scenes of half naked women and extra puerile jokes are revealed to be included here that weren't included in the original release, with Zucker himself in fact making comments such as 'Yeah, that's what we did in a vain effort to sell more copies' somewhat jokingly, but ultimately a fair comment about what has been done here. They state that one of the largest laughs that was gained in the screenings was for the Myspace joke, which pretty much sums up my feelings for this film in that this was one of the most cringe worthy jokes in the film for me, yet those behind the film seem pretty pleased about their decision to include this in the film. Although a fairly interesting feature, this extra gets old soon as ultimately this is a commentary about a film that I found to be a completely sub-standard offering and although offering a few laughs along the way as they speak about the film, I soon felt myself nodding off while listening to this feature and reminding myself of what an awful film 'Scary Movie 4' really is.

~ The Scary Truth: A Conversation With the Filmmakers ~

Having just been through a whole host of poor features, by the time you get to this one you're just praying that they wont get any worse, and thankfully it doesn't. Having said that it doesn't exactly get any better either and for me this was a pretty dull feature. Although this is by no means the worst feature on the disc, and could well be vaguely interesting for those that find the film to be a bearable offering - for me this just wasn't interesting. The problem with this feature I find is that David Zucker, Robert K. Weiss and Craig Mazin are all just sitting in a line talking about the film for 35 minutes, so there is nothing to keep you interested unless you have an active interest in the film and care about what they have to say about it. Having been entirely disappointed with 'Scary Movie 4', I wasn't really prepared to endure another 35 minutes of boredom so soon found myself giving up on this one and reaching for the remote.

Summary: The worst film in the series by far, avoid at all costs