Scary Movie 4
| Scary Movie 4 | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | David Zucker |
| Produced by | Robert K. Weiss Craig Mazin Bob Weinstein Harvey Weinstein |
| Screenplay by | Jim Abrahams Pat Proft Craig Mazin |
| Story by | Craig Mazin |
| Narrated by | James Earl Jones |
| Starring | Anna Faris Regina Hall Craig Bierko Charlie Sheen Bill Pullman Anthony Anderson Leslie Nielsen Molly Shannon Michael Madsen Chris Elliott Carmen Electra Shaquille O'Neal Phil McGraw Cloris Leachman Conchita Campbell Beau Mirchoff Kevin Hart |
| Music by | James L. Venable |
| Cinematography | Thomas E. Ackerman |
| Editing by | Craig Herring Tom Lewis |
| Studio | Dimension Films Miramax Films |
| Distributed by | North America/TV: The Weinstein Company International: Buena Vista International |
| Release date(s) | April 14, 2006 |
| Running time | Theatrical Cut: 83 minutes Unrated Cut: 89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $45,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $178,710,620 |
| Preceded by | Scary Movie 3 (2003) |
Scary Movie 4 is the fourth film of the Scary Movie franchise and is directed by David Zucker, written by Jim Abrahams, Craig Mazin and Pat Proft, and produced by Craig Mazin and Robert K. Weiss. It is distributed by The Weinstein Company via its Dimension Films unit in the U.S. and Television, and internationally by Buena Vista Distribution (Miramax). It was released on April 14, 2006. This was originally intended to be the final film in the Scary Movie franchise, but Scary Movie 5 was announced by The Weinstein Company on December 20, 2009.
Contents |
Plot
The main plot parodies four movies: The Grudge, The Village, Saw series, and War of the Worlds.
The film opens as Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil wake up with their ankles chained in a bathroom with only two minutes to escape as their host, Billy the Jigsaw Puppet, reveals the room is being filled with a nerve gas. After a few tries, Shaq manages to make a successful free throw with a huge rock and saws drop from the ceiling. Soon, Dr. Phil realizes that they have to cut through their ankles, at which point Shaq taunts Dr. Phil into cutting his ankle off first. However, Dr. Phil ends up sawing off the wrong foot, thereby remain chained as they die.
The story begins when Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) visits her brother-in-law Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen), maintaining continuity from Scary Movie 3, who is helping her in her health care profession. Her husband, George, is dead, and she sent Cody to military school. However, in spite of being in a relationship with three girls, Tom tries to kill himself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. But he accidentally ingested Viagra pills, resulting in him tumbling over a balustrade and landing on his erect penis, dying a painful death.
Later, Cindy receives a tour of a creepy house by the health care supervisor, who tries to hide the supernatural stuff caused by a boy before Cindy takes the job of caring for the house's incapacitated owner, Mrs. Norris (Cloris Leachman).
Meanwhile, Cindy's neighbor, Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), in a depressed state since his divorce, quits his job as a crane operator at the docks. At a bar afterwards he runs into Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart), who have started a homosexual relationship since they took a trip in the mountains (Brokeback Mountain). Tom gets home, where his ex-wife, Marilyn (Molly Shannon), has just arrived with his children, Robbie (Beau Mirchoff) and Rachel (Conchita Campbell), who both resent him. Later that day, after accidentally sponge bathing Mrs. Norris with her own urine, Cindy notices the strange events going on in the house, facing Toshio.
The next morning she confides in Tom about the events of the previous night, which leads to a conversation about their past relationships. Cindy has a flashback to her first marriage, showing a big African-American man cussing her out, and then another to her second marriage, to the death of her husband George (Simon Rex) when during her last boxing match against Tiffany Stone, snaps his neck in a freak accident. (Million Dollar Baby). As the two share a kiss, the sky suddenly goes stormy and everything electronic stops working - even skateboards and one man's bowels - as a gigantic object called triPod emerges to play "Karma Chameleon" before switching to the "Destroy Humanity" playlist, transforming into a mobile weapon that vaporizes mankind into ash with only their clothes left intact. Cindy runs back into her house and finds Toshio again. They began speaking in "Japanese," which was actually a combination of different Japanese brands and items. She is told by the ghost boy that she can find the answer to the alien attack when she finds the boy's killer and his father's heart, giving her directions to his father's location with blood writing on the wall, but Cindy couldn't read them, so the writing transformed into a Yahoo map so that Cindy could read it. Tom splits up with Cindy and flees with his kids.
The scene then changes to the President Baxter Harris (Leslie Nielsen) being informed that aliens are attacking while sitting in Edna R. Penhall Elementary School, listening to a book being read about a duck (September 11th attacks) when his aide Jamison (Alonzo Bodden) comes, he sits motionless, wanting to hear the rest of the story. When Jamison explains that he read the book before and the duck dies, chaos ensues, as he tells them that their parents may be dead and that santa claus doesn't exists, and the children begin to violently riot as a result. Baxter tries to go on to another story which he mistakenly called "Rumpelforeskin". When Jamison takes him out of the classroom, Baxter tells Jamison to remind him to sign the abortion bill after admitting he just doesn't get children.
Cindy runs into Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), who was thought to have been dead (and actually did die in Scary Movie 3), and now a local reporter, at a downed plane and together they manage to find the last working car and follow the directions of the ghost boy. Upon taking the car from someone by chucking a solenoid at the driver, (played by Lil' Jon), Cindy and Brenda drive past Mahalik and CJ, who've mistaken some of the slow-moving, shell-shocked survivors of the alien attack as zombies. Tom and the children continue to travel as some people threaten him, using his gun to get their attention before being forced to submit to losing the car. Back at the White House, President Harris is being briefed about the duck by Jamison as Homeland Security's Harper (Bryan Callen) comes in with an eye-witness to the alien attack. She states that the triPods are indestructible and describes the weapon used by the triPods as a laser that "causes people's clothes to fly off people."
Following the instructions by the Grudge Boy, Cindy and Brenda come across a village a century behind modern times. After unsuccessfully trying to steal clothes off some villagers, they take some from a laundry basket and attempt to fit in. Unfortunately, they are captured by the guards and are taken into a court to decide their fate by Henry Hale (Bill Pullman), the head of the village. During the trial Henry Hale's blind daughter (Carmen Electra) stumbles into the courtroom, thinking she has found her way home. Mistaking a chest for a privy, she strips and defecates, noisily, to the consternation of the crowded courtroom. Hale rules that Cindy and Brenda may stay in the village, but they may never leave.
At an emergency session of the UN, and a round of horribly inappropriate jokes, President Harris reveals a weapon made to combat the aliens. Scientists have taken the Heat Rays used by the triPods, which kill the people but leave their clothes behind, and modified it to have the opposite effect in hopes of fighting back. The members of the UN get an unexpected, and quite unwelcome, demonstration when President Harris accidentally hits the switch and is soon standing in front of all the delegates, completely unaware that he is totally naked. It’s not long before the entire UN is stark naked and panic ensues as Harper escorts the President out of the UN.
In a field strewn with red weed, Tom and his children run into a battle between the US military and triPods. Robbie decides to join the fight, excited by the graphic violence, running away from Tom. While Tom tries to dissuade him, Michael Jackson (who has gathered a group of horrified children) tries to persuade Rachel to come with him, but Tom manages to stop her in time as they and the children run into the woods as Jackson is zapped by the triPod's heat ray; reverting to back to as he looked during "Bad", then during "Thriller", before finally revealing his true form - a balding middle-aged black man - as the fourth blast destroys him totally, leaving only his nose. Tom and Rachel flee into a house protected by Oliver (Michael Madsen, who is telling them that they should make their own tripods ("Ours will have FOUR legs"). Soon, Tom and Rachel are captured by a triPod.
That night, the village is attacked by those they don't speak of, however it is discovered that they are Old Lady Henderson and Pigface Joe in costumes. Next door, Henry is stabbed in the chest by the mentally challenged Ezekiel (Chris Elliott). Henry reveals to Cindy and Brenda that he is the father of the Grudge Boy, who was killed at Cindy's boxing match when during the freak accident, the boy was crushed under the weight of Don King. He tells Cindy that only she has the power to defeat the triPods. But before Henry reveals how, he is stabbed again by Ezekiel as the other villagers arrive, answering Brenda that Ezekiel got out of jail by his equally mentally challenged brother, the sheriff. At that point, Cindy and Brenda get captured by the Command triPod.
The characters wake up in the bathroom from the opening, with Cindy and Brenda wearing "Venus Fly Traps" and Tom a device that would shoot a large penis shaped object into his anus. Jigsaw appears on a monitor on the wall, and tells them they have 60 seconds to get the devices off before they die. Eventually, Cindy figures out (after much prompting) that she has to get the key from behind her eye, which she does with ease, because the key was behind a glass eye she got due to a "bad bar fight". Cindy frees them from their traps, and Tom's kids come down from the ceiling, about to be sliced into bits unless he holds onto a rope, leaving him open to another torture device ("The Nutcracker"), which gives him various punishments such as kicking his crotch, giving him a purple nurple, a wet willy, and then an iron maiden-like contraption that would kill him, but save his kids. Moments before their imminent deaths, Cindy finds photos in the toilet of Jigsaw with Henry's wife and the Grudge Boy, realizing that Jigsaw was the ghost boy's biological father, and the entire invasion was revenge for his son's death. But after seeing how far Tom would go to save his children's lives at the cost of his own, Jigsaw cancels the invasion and allows them to leave after forcefully apologizing for the killing of millions. Nine months later, Brenda gives birth to her love child with Billy's brother, Zoltar; CJ, and Mahalik resume their homosexual relationship; and President Harris is seen sleeping with a duck as James Earl Jones narrates mankind's victory before getting run over by a passing bus.
An epilogue about a month later, Tom appears on Oprah, acting crazy for attention with her (Debra Wilson). Tom runs around the studio, does backflips, swings across the studio, and chews/rips apart one of the couch cushions. Cindy Campbell walks in and gets thrown off the stage by Tom. Tom then breaks Oprah's hands and wrists, smashes a chair over her head, runs towards and puts his mouth over the camera lens as the screen goes black.
Cast
- Anna Faris as Cindy Campbell
- Regina Hall as Brenda Meeks
- Craig Bierko as Tom Ryan
- Bill Pullman as Henry Hale
- Leslie Nielsen as President Harris
- Anthony Anderson as Mahalik
- Kevin Hart as CJ
- Molly Shannon as Marilyn
- Beau Mirchoff as Robbie Ryan
- Conchita Campbell as Rachel Ryan
- DeRay Davis as Marvin
- Carmen Electra as Holly | Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress
- Chris Elliott as Ezekiel
- Michael Madsen as Oliver
- Cloris Leachman as Ms. Norris
- Henry Mah as Mr. Koji
- Patrice O'Neal as Rashed/CrackHead
- Garrett Masuda as Toshio Saeki
- Kathryn Dobbs as School Teacher
- Link Baker as Zoltar (voice)
- Angelique Naude as Waitress
- Shaquille O'Neal as Himself
- Dr. Phil as Himself
- Debra Wilson as Oprah Winfrey
- Charlie Sheen as Tom Logan
- Simon Rex as George Logan
- Rorelee Tio as Yoko
- Allison Warren as Polish Delegate
- Edward Moss as Michael Jackson
- Lil' Jon as Himself
- Fabolous as Himself/Gunman
- Chingy as Himself
- Crystal Lowe as Chingy's Girl
- Bubba Sparxxx as Hoodlum
- Bone Crusher as Hoodlum
- Sean P (of Youngbloodz) as Himself
- J-Bo (of Youngbloodz) as Himself
- Don King as Himself
- James Earl Jones as Narrator
- Dave Attell as Knifeman
- John Reardon as Jeremiah
- Kimani Ray Smith as Cutman
- Dale Wolfe as Hang Gliding Man
- Holly Madison as Herself
- Bridget Marquardt as Herself
- Kendra Wilkinson as Herself
- Billy the Puppet as Himself
Parodies
As with the other films in the series, Scary Movie 4 parodies an array of movies and television shows. The following is a list of all the officially spoofed scenes/events throughout the movie:
- Saw – The opening scene with Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil and the villain Jigsaw on the TV talking through Billy the Puppet. It was also in a bathroom. Adam and Dr. Lawrence Gordon were in the same setting and in the same trap in Saw.
- Saw II – The Venus Flytrap harnesses worn by Cindy and Brenda, and the "Key behind your eye" part of the trap.
- The Village - Main Parody.
- The Grudge – Main Parody.
- War of the Worlds – Main Parody.
- Million Dollar Baby – Cindy's boxing match with a female Mike Tyson.
- Brokeback Mountain – The scene with CJ and Mahalik in the tent
- Hustle & Flow – Cindy's first marriage (very short).
- Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo – In the beginning, the cat clutches Tom Logan's penis, similar to the cat that clutched T.J.'s
- The Oprah Winfrey Show – At the end of the film, it mocks the Tom Cruise "jumping on couch" incident.
- Bush's 9/11 book reading incident – President Harris listening to a girl reading a book about a duck at the Edna R. Penhall Elementary School while being informed about the alien attacks.
Release and reception
Box office
In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $40.2 million,[1] the third best opening weekend of the Scary Movie franchise. It has the best Easter weekend opening weekend ever, beating Panic Room (film) which made $30.1 million in its opening and also the second best April opening, only $2 million behind Anger Management's record. As of October 18, 2006, the film has grossed a total of $90,710,620 at the United States box office and $178,710,620 worldwide.
Critical response
The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 37% based on 125 reviews.[2] Though for the most part it was received less favorably than the first three Scary Movies, with only the second one getting worse reviews, The New York Times' review was relatively positive: "Organized on the principle of parody, not plot..., it's an exercise in lowbrow postmodernism, a movie-movie contraption more nuts than Charlie Kaufman's gnarliest fever dream."[3]
Home release
The film was released on DVD on August 15, 2006 in rated (83 minutes) and unrated (89 minutes) editions with deleted scenes, bloopers, and outtakes. About 1,581,754 units were sold, bringing in $22,308,989 in revenue.[4]
Ratings
- In the USA, the official MPAA rating is PG-13 for "crude and sexual humor throughout, some comic violence, and language".
- In the UK, the official BBFC rating is 15 for "strong language and moderate sex references".
References
- ↑ 'Scary Movie 4' Cracks Easter Record
- ↑ Scary Movie 4 at Rotten Tomatoes
- ↑ Lee, Nathan (2006-04-14). "Parody Without Plot in 'Scary Movie 4'". New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/2006/04/14/movies/14scar.html. Retrieved 2008-02-02.
- ↑ http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2006/SCAR4-DVD.php
External links
- Official website
- Scary Movie 4 at the Internet Movie Database
- Scary Movie 4 at Allmovie
- Scary Movie 4 at Box Office Mojo
- Scary Movie 4 at Rotten Tomatoes
- Scary Movie 4 at Metacritic
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