Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Scary Movie 4

EMAILPRINTThe Weinstein Company

Scary Movie 4 reviews
40
6.2 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 23 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 78 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Comedy  |  Horror

Written by: Craig Mazin (also story)
Jim Abrahams

Directed by: David Zucker

Release Date:
Theatrical: April 14, 2006
DVD: August 15, 2006

Running Time: 83 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for crude and sexual humor throughout, some comic violence and language

Starring Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko, Simon Rex, Kimani Ray Smith, Carmen Electra, Shaquille O'Neal, and Dr. Phillip C. McGraw

What do you get when you mix fearless comedic genius with the latest box-office blockbusters? You guessed it. The Scary Movie gang is back with the most hilarious and irreverent installment yet. (The Weinstein Company)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

About five times as funny as "Scary Movie 3."

Read Full Review >
70

LA Weekly Tim Grierson

The sort of movie you like in spite of yourself, Scary Movie 4 is obvious and dumb, but it possesses such a giddy, good-hearted spirit that even its terrible jokes (and there are tons) get by on something resembling charm.

Read Full Review >
67

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

This a rapid-fire romp through "War of the Worlds," "Saw," "The Grudge" and "The Village," cut up into skits and pieced back together in some mutant jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing, delivers a barrage of low-minded gags with high-spirited energy.

Read Full Review >
67

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Anna Faris, her deadpan comic timing still a joy to watch, returns as Cindy Campbell, one of two main holdovers from the first three movies.

Read Full Review >
63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

Writing, casting and pacing are vital. Scary Movie 4 doesn't let any gag get stale. It's rapid-fire, hit-and-miss and hit-and-strike comedy.

Read Full Review >
63

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

There are plenty of chuckles at the expense of Dr. Phil, Shaquille O'Neal, Carmen Electra, Charlie Sheen and series stalwart Leslie Nielsen. But with no comic carryover from one skit to the next, true belly laughs are few and far between.

Read Full Review >
58

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

And as ever, the jokes are a jumble of the gross, the baggy, the raunchy, the mistimed, and - every once in a while - the refreshingly incorrect.

Read Full Review >
50

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The humor emphasizes quantity over quality, but the batting average isn't too bad. And where else can you witness Leslie Nielsen do a nude scene?

Read Full Review >
50

The New York Times Nathan Lee

The fun of Scary Movie 4 is that it isn't a movie at all. Organized on the principle of parody, not plot, driven by gags and cultural feedback, it's an exercise in lowbrow postmodernism, a movie-movie contraption more nuts than Charlie Kaufman's gnarliest fever dream. It's cleverly stupid.

Read Full Review >
50

TV Guide Angel Cohn

But for those jonesing for a loosely connected string of comedy sketches, heavy on the scatological humor, this is the fix.

Read Full Review >
50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

To go with the good, there's plenty of bad, and it comes in the form of countless gags that misfire, far too much flatulence and urine, and (God help us) a buck naked Leslie Nielsen. Admittedly, that scene certainly puts the "scary" in Scary Movie 4.

Read Full Review >
50

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil open Scary Movie 4 with an achingly unfunny couple of minutes of severed limbs and errant hoop shots.

Read Full Review >
50

Village Voice Luke Y. Thompson

The jokes miss more than they hit, but there are a lot of them, and when they work, it's gold.

Read Full Review >
50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The best parts come in the rare moments when the film decides to break from formula, as when old Zucker-team warhorse Leslie Nielsen returns as the U.S. President.

Read Full Review >
40

Film Threat Clint Morris

The series has turned into the cinematic equivalent of a flat bicycle tyre – it starts off with lots of air in it, but can quickly go flat when punctured.

Read Full Review >
40

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The fourth installment in the horror-parody franchise combines plot elements from "The Grudge," "The Village," and "War of the Worlds," with abbreviated spoofs of "Saw," "Brokeback Mountain," and "Million Dollar Baby." The amount of screen time allotted to each movie is roughly proportional to its box office take, suggesting that the first draft of the screenplay was written on a calculator.

Read Full Review >
40

Variety Dennis Harvey

Scary Movie 4 finds horror parody overshadowed by ho-hum groin blows, C-list celebrity cameos, slapstick child abuse, soon-to-be-forgotten hip-hop personalities, plus scatalogical and gay jokes; real laughs are few.

Read Full Review >
30

Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart

Isn't it amazing to see just how low some people will stoop if you pay them enough?

Read Full Review >
30

Slate Ben Wasserstein

Jokes from Scary Movie 3 are recycled ad nauseam.

Read Full Review >
25

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Part sketch-comedy cartoon, part Cracked magazine spoof, installment four is the most scornfully made yet.

Read Full Review >
25

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Scary Movie 4 concludes by satirizing Cruise's couch-jumping orgy on "Oprah." Funny, but nowhere near as hilarious as the real thing.

Read Full Review >
20

Empire Kim Newman

Worse than Scary Movies 1 through 3… And they were terrible.

Read Full Review >
0

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

So lazy it's downright boring, something not even a naked Leslie Nielson (!) can salvage.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 78 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Gavin C gave it a5:
Unfortunately, this installment is simply less funny than all the other films.

Enzo P. gave it a5:
Scary Movie 4 is funny laugh out loud but it still doesn't compare to the first and the third film. Also the stupidness wasn't as high as the second scary movie. But overall a good spoof movie.

[Anonymous] gave it a6:
A bit over the top, but still delivered a signifacant amount of laughs. And as for Reece S. saying "its only funny if your a two year old" uh, no, this movie is not appropriate for a two year old. Maybe i you had said "only funny for a twelve year old" or something along that line i'd have been more inclined to respect your view.

Adam E gave it a1:
So bad it's good, then bad, then good, then finally bad. A bunch of immature jokes that revert to repetitive toilet/sex jokes rather than actual spoof.

Reece S. gave it a3:
Funny if you're a 2 year old.

Peter J. gave it a5:
Eh, I've seen worse. Did anyone actually expect any better than a 5? Seriously. I got what I expected. I few predictable lewd laughs. Nothing more.

Suraj N gave it a10:
It was a great movie that had me in stitches.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: College Signing Day | Olympics | Lost | iPhone | Cell Phones | Video Game Reviews | Free Music

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use