Film Reviews

Scary Movie 4

• Rating:
• Director: David Zucker
• Starring: Anna Faris
• Details: US, 90mins, 15s.

And so the sequels roll on. The daft Cindy (Faris) and the promiscuous Brenda (Hall) are back to take the mickey out of everything they can in the running time allowed in the latest Scary Movie. Cindy and Brenda move into a house to take car of an old lady but the house is haunted by a little boy who is on a quest to find out who killed him and why. Meanwhile, when alien 'tr-iPods' are discovered, Cindy is convinced an alien invasion is imminent and has to uncover a secret to stop them.
There was a time when this type of comedy was funny but that day is long gone and it's time Zucker tried something a little different - making a proper movie is a thought. With Airplane II and Hot Shots Part Deux flogging a dead horse in the send-up in stakes (except for the Sheen family's Wall Street gag in the latter), Scary Movie 1-3 failed to garner a quiet chuckle and The Date Movie's inclination to make you weep for the loss of genuine comedy, the silly parody genre should be put on ice until they get new ideas. But no, there's money to be made and fools to pacify so this time War Of The Worlds, The Grudge, The Village, Million Dollar Baby, Saw and Saw II are up for a leg pull but the general feeling is that even Zucker is bored with the jokes. And if the creator is bored, what hope is there for us?

Review by Gavin Burke