You kids today, with your "Date Movie" pseudo-spoofs and your PG-13 horror remakes and your "SNL"-fueled misconceptions
about satire -- you don't remember what REAL movie parodies were like, back in the days of "Airplane!" and "Top Secret!" Back then, movie parodies were so goofy that the federal government required them to have exclamation points in their titles, to warn the viewer. That's the way it was, and we liked it! For slapsticky, loose-limbed, MAD Magazine-style movie satires, you can do no better than the works of director David Zucker, whose "Airplane!" defined the genre, whose "Top Secret!" perfected it, and whose "Naked Gun" furthered it. "Scary Movie 3" was a return to form for the long-dormant Zucker, and now, reunited with his long-time writers Pat Proft and Jim Abrahams (along with SM3 scribe Craig Mazin), he has assembled the respectably amusing and juvenile "Scary Movie 4." It's no classic, but it's no dud, either. The plot rather cleverly combines elements of "The Grudge," "War of the Worlds" and "Saw," with sequences parodying "The Village," "Million Dollar Baby" and "Brokeback Mountain" thrown in for good measure. "Scary Movie" stalwart Cindy Campbell (the under-appreciated Anna Faris) is now a home-hospice nurse caring for a catatonic old woman (Cloris Leachman) whose house is haunted by an androgynous Asian boy-ghost. Meanwhile, next door, there's a divorced man named Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), whose situation will remind viewers of Tom Cruise's in "War of the Worlds" (complete with stentorian narration, not by Morgan Freeman but by James Earl Jones). When alien tripods (which look like iPods, hardy-har) begin killing people, Tom and Cindy must save the day.
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