Shaq and Dr. Phil McGraw in The Weinstein Company’s Scary Movie 4, © 2006.

There is a fine line between parody and satire, and it seems to me, especially from seeing the Scary Movie films, that only one of these genres work. How can I clarify this? Scary Movie is a parody. This is Spinal Tap is a satire.

Parodies poke fun at something and sometimes retell a story in a comic or ridiculing way. Satires usually create their own story and actually play to be fans of the works they are mimicking. Either can be funny and that is what their intentions are, they are usually sub-genres of comedy.

The problem with The Scary Movie films are they are parodies that keep poking fun at something that it continuously keeps doing so that you almost pitty the work they are mimicking. These movies parody horror movies, usually of the last few years, though the first two movies in the franchise played off the classics. I found this in much better taste, considering more people could get a kick out of them. The last two films do just the opposite and it is clear that the movies have established their target audience, the people who have gone to the theater to go see these recent crappy horror films.

The third film was much better than its previous, especially introducing Leslie Nielsen as the idiotic and “doesn’t have a clue” president of the United States. Unfortunately the plot of this film, is too much like the third’s.

The film opens in a dark and rotting room, the hanging fluorescents crackle on to reveal two victims chained to the wall in this horrid place. It is none other than Dr. Phil and Shaq as themselves (This scene spoofing Saw). After this scene and Dr. Phil cutting off the wrong foot that was chained to the wall, we catch up with Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen). For some reason he is suicidal living in an apartment and before he makes another attempt, Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris) drops by for a reason I don’t even think they clarified. Tom attempts to kill himself by overdosing on something, he later finds out was 100 mg of viagra and he then stumbles over the balconey, landing “hard-on” the street.

Cindy buys a new house she finds to be haunted by a little Japanese boy (The Grudge) and her next door neighbor, Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), is recovering from a divorce and the two seem to fall for each other. Days later, in the town they are living in (I have no idea, there is a Japanese house sitting right next door to the New Jersey house Cruise’s character lives in War Of The Worlds), alien war machines leap from the ground and start vaporizing people. Somehow the answer to whoever killed the little boy will stop the alien invasion.

I know, it sounds rediculous and it was. But it is trying to be. Director David Zucker is trying as hard as possible for laughs and doesn’t care how he gets them. No matter how stupid. When it comes to setting up the movie, it puts the entire 3rd film behind them like it never happened. Characters aren’t really dead, they come up with stupid excuses why some characters aren’t even there. Why not reinvent each time you do one of these films? To tell you the truth, I’m sick of seeing Anna Faris.

The acting in the film can’t be judged, it supposed to be terrible, even though Anna Faris can do well, in this franchise she brings out her worst.

I understand this is parody and it can get pretty funny when it comes to seeing recognizable films play out horribly, but the film links each parody together uncreatively.

Craig Mazin’s screenplay keeps the characters wandering from spoof to spoof with little to no purpose. When the characters appear to be trying to accomplish something through conversation, a stupid joke interrupts, and then of all of sudden what they were trying to accomplish has been. The story knows where it wants to go, but has no idea how to get there and doesn’t care how they do it. Call it a dirty story.

Many of the jokes are mess and much of the humor relies on people getting hit in the face with something, causing them to fly through the air. Others are pretty disgusting, including urine, partial nudity, and yes, a Michael Jackson joke. Films spoofed in this sequel are War of The Worlds (The walking tripods first appear to be very large Ipods), The Grudge, Saw, Brokeback Mountain, and The Village.

The few instances that got me laughing was the Leslie Nielsen material, the opening Saw sequence, a scene in which Tom Ryan is trying to unlock the car for someone but they keep pulling on the handle, and a certain line: “Look out Russell Crowe’s got a phone!”

I expect this film will do fairly well at the Box Office, as they usually do, but atleast this wasn’t as horrible as The Benchwarmers. I wonder if they will ever make a Scary Movie in which they spoof the Scary Movies, at that, they just might implode. Not that these films are not already collapsing inward violently.

Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor throughout, some comic violence and language. Running time 83 minutes.