When a movie turns into a series of movies, it's rare for the creative team behind the original film to be involved in the sequels. They typically move onto other projects while new blood comes in to take a crack at the movies. The Scary Movie franchise is a bit different, as it truly feels like a franchise, wherein someone takes over the rights to something in order put their own stamp on it. The first two Scary Movie films were made by The Wayans Brothers (with Keenen Ivory Wayans and starring Shawn & Marlon Wayans). However with Scary Movie 3, the reins were handed to David Zucker, part of the team which made Airplane! and The Naked Gun films. Zucker and his team continue to spoof horror movies in Scary Movie 4. Will they continue to take the franchise in the right direction?

I don't know which will be easier, trying to describe what Scary Movie 4 is about or simply listing the movies which it spoofs. A lot of the story once again center on Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris). Once a reporter, Cindy now works in home health care and she's assigned to work with Mrs. Norris (Cloris Leachman). However, she soon senses a strange presence in the house and begins to see a little boy. She meets her neighbor, Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), a single-dad who is doing a bad job caring for his two children (Conchita Campbell & Beau Mirchoff). The flirtation between Cindy and Tom quickly ends when alien tripods land on Earth and begin vaporizing every person in sight. The little boy in Mrs. Norris' house gives Cindy a message explaining how the aliens can be stopped. She goes in search of this answer, while Tom tries to get his family out of the city. Cindy will soon meet up with an old friend and she'll find that the secret behind the alien invasion is stranger than anyone could imagine.

Whereas movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun spoof a particular genre, the Scary Movie movies take shots at specific movies, and Scary Movie 4 is no exception. Scary Movie 3 found success by taking it's main "story" from spoofs of The Ring and Signs. Scary Movie 4 decides to follow that example of mixing horror and science-fiction by combining The Grudge with the 2005 version of War of the Worlds. We also get scenes which spoof Brokeback Mountain, The Village, and Saw.

I don't think that anyone watches a Scary Movie entry for the story, but Scary Movie 4 definitely struggles in this area. For these films, the story acts simply as a skeleton onto which the jokes can be hung. In Scary Movie 3, the story felt a bit forced, but it was obvious that steps were taken to string everything together. With Scary Movie 4, things feel much more disconnected, thus making the movie harder to get into. Clearly the series is meant to be a loosely-connected group of movies, but it still seems odd that Cindy would go from being a reporter to being a home health worker. Also, the way in which the movie dispenses of characters from Scary Movie 3 seems odd. Placing Mrs. Norris haunted house next to Tom Ryan's house brings Cindy and Tom together, but again, it makes us roll our eyes. These movies don't have to make sense, but the finale here simply doesn't work.

But, again, we're here to laugh, not to be wowed by a great story. While I laughed at the first two movies, I found Scary Movie 3 to be a new high-point for the series, as it brought a new level of sophistication to the silliness and didn't always go for the gross-out joke. Scary Movie 4 takes a step backwards. Did I laugh? Sure I did, but not as much and not as heartily. The problem here isn't necessarily the writing, but the source material. Clearly The Grudge and War of the Worlds gave the writers some material to work with, but not enough to really wring out a ton of jokes. Also, the jokes here are very specific, and if you haven't seen the movies, then you won't get the jokes. The real comedic high for the movie comes with the return of Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart), whose banter is priceless. The most impressive aspect of the movie may be the people who they got to do cameos, such as Shaquille O'Neal, Dr. Phil, and Bill Pullman directly spoofing his role from The Grudge.

Scary Movie 4 may be a disappointment, but it's still heads and shoulders above anything made by Seltzer & Friedberg. As with any of these movies, the jokes feel a bit dated five years later, as it's so specific to the movies that it's lampooning. Still, there are some laughs here, and I guess the Charlie Sheen cameo makes the movie topical.

Scary Movie 4 clearly tacked on its coda on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of The Weinstein Company/Dimension Home Entertainment/Vivendi. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains a MPEG-2 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 28 Mbps. This is the first time that I've encountered a MPEG-2 transfer on a Blu-ray Disc. This mode is usually used on DVDs. Typically, if a Blu-ray is going to go lower tech, it's in the audio department. Still, the image looks pretty good. The image is sharp and clear, showing no overt grain or defects from the source material. The colors look good and the image is never overly dark or bright. The picture does lack when it comes to detail -- the image is clear, but not as detailed or deep as an AVC transfer would be. The Disc carries a Linear PCM 5.1 audio track which runs at 48 kHz and a constant 4.6 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The surround sound effects during the alien attack scenes are very good, as specific sounds come from the rear and the audio is nicely detailed. These same scenes offer good subwoofer effects as well. Crowd scenes offer nicely-placed stereo effects.

The Scary Movie 4 Blu-ray Disc contains several extras. The Disc contains fifteen DELETED SCENES which run about 14 minutes and can be viewed with audio commentary from Director David Zucker, Producer Robert K. Weiss, and Writer/Producer Craig Mazin. The bulk of these are simply cut moments from scenes which are in the finished film. Some of them are slightly amusing, but it's understandable why there were cut. "The Scary Truth: A Conversation with the Filmmakers" (35 minutes) is an extended interview with Zucker, Weiss, and Mazin who discuss their involvement in and work on both Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4. There is a 7-minute reel of BLOOPERS. "The Man Behind the Laugh: David Zucker" (4 minutes) is a brief profile of the director, with comments from the cast. "Zany Spoof Humor: Zucker Style" (3 minutes) explores this Airplane! style of comedy. "The Visual Effects of Scary Movie 4" (9 minutes) shows us how the tripods and ghosts for the movie were created. "Youngbloodz" (3 minutes) spotlights two rappers who are in the film. (And I don't know who they are.) "Rappers...Actors" (3 minutes) looks at how the musical folks like Chingy and Lil Jon were brought into the film. "The Cast" (16 minutes) contains interviews with the cast as they discuss their characters. "Improvisation of Craig Bierko" (7 minutes) basically shows us the final scene again.