Publication Date: 06-03-2026

Scary Movie 4 (2006) review

Dir. David Zucker

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★

For a series as flimsy as Scary Movie to have made it as far as a fourth film before suffering a substantial dropoff in quality is a feat in itself. It doesn’t make Scary Movie 4 any less painful to endure, nor does it magically bring the Wayans family back to the material they created, but it does make you appreciate the major comedic win that was the first sequel and the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker (ZAZ) brand of humor in the third film.

One of many reasons Scary Movie 4 is such a failure is it traded in its campy aesthetic for a comparatively colder, overcast visual look. Its primary sources of inspiration — The Grudge, Saw, The Village, and War of the Worlds (2005) — didn’t boast the most colorful aesthetic, but they were also buoyed by a concept and a plot to be taken seriously. There is no fun Hell House-esque setting here. Just a sad-sack lead (Craig Bierko).

Another reason this sequel fails so spectacularly is due to the mind-numbing amount of physical comedy. Scary Movie 4 can’t go more than two minutes without someone getting punched, being hit by/with something, or falling down. The awkwardly unfunny opening scene involving Shaquille O’Neal and Dr. Phil McGraw being trapped in the Saw basement has the punchline being Shaq’s inability to shoot free-throws, each ball knocking something over and conking Dr. Phil on the head. Then the scene abruptly ends as if writers Craig Mazin, Jim Abrahams, and Pat Proft forgot where they were going. From there, we are reintroduced to Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), who goes to visit her brother-in-law, Tom (Charlie Sheen), who is so depressed, he wolfs down a bottle of pills. Turns out, they’re boner pills, and after bumbling around his apartment with his tree-trunk size schlong, he falls from his balcony, his erection breaking the fall. This is all within the early minutes of a film that spends the remaining 80 minutes in search of somewhere to go.

Familiar faces include Anthony Anderson and Kevin Hart, whose parodic bit centered around Brokeback Mountain is one of the few sources of entertainment this sequel has to offer. Mike Tyson shows up to bite off a few dozen ears in a scene that makes the worst bits of future series Mike Tyson Mysteries look like high art. Michael Madsen shows up to no benefit of his own, and Chris Elliott is a focal point in the film’s overlong send-up of The Village.

Once aliens invade, and the core trio of Faris, Bierko, and Regina Hall retreat to the woods, the film completely loses momentum. It becomes a series of slapstick-heavy nonsense, and a plodding foot journey. The science-fiction tone also sullies the material in living up to its roots in the horror genre. The law of diminishing returns finally caught up with Scary Movie, and its flaws are apparent very early into the film. It’s not a mystery as to why this movie sucks. It does however remain a mystery as to why King Kong is shown chomping on a cigar on the film’s poster when he doesn’t appear in the film at all. Consider him spared.

My review of Scary Movie (2000)
My review of Scary Movie 2
My review of Scary Movie 3
My review of Scary Movie 5
My review of Scary Movie (2026)

Starring: Anna Faris, Craig Bierko, Regina Hall, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, Charlie Sheen, Leslie Nielsen, Bill Pullman, Chris Elliott, Carmen Electra, Michael Madsen, Mike Tyson, Phil McGraw, and Shaquille O’Neal. Directed by: David Zucker.