War of the Worlds, the Grudge, The Village, Saw. What do you all of these movies have in common? None of them are safe from the newest parody flick, Scary Movie 4. The first three movies in the franchise have brought a certain style of humor and parody to the big screen, and this newest installment doesn’t dissapoint. It begins with a monologue to mimic the one that Morgan Freeman recites at the beginning of War of the Worlds, and the laughs continue until the end, when Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko) goes on the Opera show and jumps up and down on her couch very Tom Cruise-ish while screaming ‘I love this woman!’ There are many familer faces returning in their familer roles. Cindy (Anna Faris) is the unfortunate young woman who moves into a house to take care of an ailing woman named Mrs. Norris, not knowing that the house is haunted by the spirit of a young boy. However, the house was probably safer before Cindy moved in, as she makes mistake after mistake, including accidently washing Mrs. Norris with her bedpan contents rather than water. As luck would have it, the house is located right next to that of Tom Ryan, a man who is divorced and who’s kids seem to have no respect for him. The two of them meet when Tom is out throwing a baseball with his son Robbie (Beau Mirchoff) and misses, hitting Cindy in the head. They meet under this circumstances again, except that this time it’s a football that Cindy is beaned with. This prompts the two to begin talking of how they want to fall in love again, and share a dramatic kiss, accomponied by the phantom wind, except that it gets worse. Here they discover some omnious-looking clouds forming in the distance, and the wind is strangely heading towards the storm. Sound familiar? It gets better. After the lightning storm (in which the hapless Rachel (Conchita Campbell) gets struck by lightning twice) Tom goes into town to see what is going on. None of the cars will go, and there’s a huge crater in the middle of a road. As all the people watch, a being rises from the ground to tower over them. A being so terrifying and awe inspiring it can only be one thing---a Tri-iPod. At first, it seems harmless, setting it’s playlist to 80’s music. But it soon switches to Destroy Humanity, and that’s when the terror begins.
People scramble to safety as the Tri-iPod unleashes it’s deadly ray, killing people on the spot. Of course, if you were a fast runner, you still had to worry about being pushed into the ray so that someone else could steal your clothes. After the intial attack, Tom manages to steal a van and drive away with his children. Cindy, meanwhile, is on a search to find the father of the murdered boy, who supposedly has the answer to stop the alien invasion. While the two lovers part ways, President Harris (Leslie Nielsen) is at a school, listening to children read a book entitled My Pet Duck. He is so engrossed in the story that, when he is told that the country is under alien attack, he refuses to get up until he hears what happened to the duck. It is not until he asks if it was possibile that all the children’s parents could be dead---causing a panic in the classroom---that he agrees to get up and return to the White House. Of course, he’s still worried about what’s going to happen to the duck. At an emergency session of the UN, and a round of horriably inappropriate jokes, President Harris reveals a weapon made to combat the ailens. Scientists have taken the lasers used by the Tri-iPods, which kill the people but leave their clothes behind, and modified it to do the opposite to the ailens. The members of the UN get an unexpected, and quite unwelcome, demonstration when President Harris accidently hits the switch and is soon standing in front of all the delegates, completly unaware that he is totally naked. It’s not long before the entire UN is stark naked and, in true Scary Movie style, pandemonium ensues. In additon to the main Grudge and War of the Worlds plot lines, there is a scene taken from The Village and Saw. Cindy and her friend Brenda (Regina Hall), after stealing a car from Lil’ John, find the father of the dead boy in a strange village, where people still dress, talk and act as though they were still living in the Puritan times. This strange village comes complete with Holly, the blind girl (Carmen Electra) and the village idiot (Chris Elliot), who kills the father before he can tell them the answer to stopping the alien invasion. And, of course, there’s Saw. Who can forget seeing Shaquille O’Neal and Dr. Phil locked in a room together, where the only way out is to saw through their feet? Dr. Phil manages the brave feat, only to discover that he is sawn through the wrong foot. With Jigsaw being voiced by comidien Dane Cook, and an interesting plot twist that ends up saving the world, the movie will have you laughing from beginning to end. The word on the street is that this is the last of the Scary Movies, and we can only hope so. While the movie is entertaining and humerous, it seems as though they are simply grasping at straws most of the time. Most of the jokes have been played so many times that they have lost their appeal. The plot was overdone, and most things seemed campy instead of actually funny. However, fans of the franchise will enjoy it, and it’s worth seeing a parody of Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping episode.