Scary Movie 4

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Scary Movie 4's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Scary Movie 4 completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 27 April 2006.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Scary Movie 4 contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Scary Movie 4 is a spoof of several movies including War of the Worlds, The Grudge, The Village, Saw and Saw I and Million Dollar Baby. Several stars from previous Scary Movie films appear, including spoof veteran Leslie Nielsen enacting the role of an incompetent US President.

Several disjointed scenes open the movie. Basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal and daytime talk-show therapist Dr. Phil McGraw have their legs chained to the wall of the world’s grottiest toilet. To gain their freedom, Shaquille throws a free throw to release a hacksaw, which Dr. Phil uses to saw off his own leg. Tom (Charlie Sheen) overdoses on Viagra and then kills himself by jumping form the balcony of his multistorey apartment. In the meantime, crane operator Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko) finds himself looking after his young daughter and troubled adolescent son for the weekend. Coincidentally, Tom lives next door to a house haunted by the ghost of a murdered Japanese boy. Living in the house is Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), who is caring for an infirmed Mrs. Norris (Cloris Leachman).

When aliens in giant Tripods erupt from under the city sidewalk, Tom, his two children and Cindy are forced to flee to the countryside. Cindy is separated from them and ends up with her old friend Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), in a 19 century-like village settlement run by a man named Henry (Bill Pullman). Eventually all are reunited and they must work out how to save their lives and defeat the aliens.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Alien invasion, horror, harm to children and animals

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, mostly intended for comic effect, including:

• Dr. Phil cuts off his foot with a hacksaw
  
• Tom commits suicide by taking an overdose of Viagra and jumping from the balcony of his multistorey apartment
  
• a cat is thrown through a window
  
• Tom unintentionally bashes his young daughter in the head with a suitcase, knocking her flying through the air
  
• a short time later he unintentionally bashes her head with the car door
  
• later, the same girl has her hand slammed in a car door
  
• Cindy is hit in the head by a variety of flying objects
  
• Cindy unintentionally bashes Mrs. Norris’s head several times against a shelf knocking her senseless
  
• a man drowns a boy (ghost) in a bathtub and then repeatedly hits the boy’s head with a rubber plunger
  
• lightning repeatedly blows up Tom’s daughter
  
• a terrorist strapped with dynamite tries to blow himself up. When his attempt fails he is attacked and beaten by an angry mob
  
• people are incinerated alive by laser-like beams generated by alien Tripods, leaving only the victims’ clothes behind
  
• in a boxing match between Cindy and another female boxer (Mike Tyson dressed in drag) the boxers exchanged numerous punches to the head and body with Tyson biting off the referee’s ear as well as a number of spectator’s ears resulting in a large number of bitten off ears piling up on the floor of the boxing ring
  
• Tom unintentionally shoots a man flying a hang glider, firstly with a handgun, then with a crossbow
  
• a man bashes an elderly grandmother-like lady, thought to be a zombie

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above mentioned violent scenes, there are some visual images in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

• a young woman has her jaw ripped from her face with a long scary looking tongue hanging from her mouth and a mouth full of scary looking teeth
  
• a wraith-like boy with large dark void eyes and a vacant expression on his face
  
• during a shower scene, an evil looking hand grows out of the back of Cindy’s head
  
• giant Tripod-like machines with vaporising beams

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Some children in the eight to thirteen age range could still be disturbed by the above-mentioned violence, scary images and scenes, particularly the more horror-like images relating to The Grudge parody, and the threatening images parodying War of the Worlds such as Tripod tentacles abducting people.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Adolescents over the age of thirteen years will be more able to interpret the scary images presented throughout the film in the satirical manner with which they are intended. However, some may still be disturbed by some of the horror-like images and threatening scenes.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• Tom confides with a male friend about his separation from his wife, to whom his friend responds, “I slept with her a few times.”
• Brenda states “What’s his name I might have already done him?… Yep done him”
• a man states “He intends to have sex with her, she intends to put up a fight and then give in.”
• inference is made to Brenda having sex with one of the aliens. When questioned by his superior the alien responds with “She said she was a virgin.”
• as Tom walks out of his bedroom, three women uncover themselves from underneath the bed covers and ask him to come back to bed
• Tom overdoses with Viagra and as a consequence develops a grossly oversized penis
• Tom attacks his over large penis bashing it with his fists and then throws himself over the balcony of high-rise apartment
• two men are shown sleeping side by side in a tent. One of the men reach across the other’s shoulder and puts his hand down near the other’s groin, then stating “Relax just trying to grab some nuts” (holding a packet of peanuts)
• Tom hits Cindy in the face with a baseball to which Cindy replies “I’ve taken balls to the face before”
• a banquet table shows two whole cooked pigs positioned with one pig mounting the other pig from behind
• Brenda looks a man sitting next to her, points to him and then herself, rocks her body back and forth in a sexually suggestive manner
• in a scene depicting mass panic, hundreds of people run about in a chaotic manner. A Michael Jackson look a like approaches a group of children and states “I’ll keep you save, do you have a little brother.”

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity, partial nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

• Two men naked from the waist up. Later the same two men are shown wearing jeans that expose the cheeks of their bottoms
• the American President accidentally shoots himself with an alien gun, which had been altered to disintegrate cloths rather than flesh; as a result being shown totally naked, although the genital area is not exposed
• the President then accidentally turned the gun on the UN rendering the entire UN naked; although breasts and genitals are not exposed
• two men in a tent excitedly rip off their shirts, rub massage oil over their own bodies then put on rubber gloves. The tent is then shown violently shaking back and forth
• Tom, Cindy and Brenda are placed in a chamber and strapped to various torture devices. Tom has a crossbow with a very large projectile strapped to his bottom. When Tom is released from the device, Brenda picks it up and states “Is it too late for me to try this on.”
• some scenes where Tom kisses Cindy on the mouth, and a scene involving two men who have just been married kissing each other on the mouth
• three women are shown in bed, all wearing low cut tops exposing their cleavage
• a blind woman walks into a village meeting wearing scanty lingerie.

Use of substances

One scene in which Tom is drinking beer in a bar.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• damn it
  
• what the hell
  
• shut up
  
• bullshit
  
• shit
  
• that’s how I roll bitches
  
• big arse
  
• fricken’
  
• one use of “fucked.”

There is some use of toilet humour which some people may find offensive:

• Cindy is giving Mrs. Norris a sponge bath and instead of using the water, Cindy accidentally dips the sponge into a bedpan containing urine. She washes Mrs. Norris’s arms, face, neck and hair with urine.
• a blind woman dressed only in lingerie mistakenly walks into a church hall full of people, pulls down her pants and sits on a pew, which she mistakes for a toilet. Numerous explosive sounds and extreme flatulence, for an extended period of time.

The movie's message

As Scary Movie 4 is a jumble of five different parodies it is not designed to contain a meaningful plot, and as a result did not contain any meaningful take-home message, or any worthwhile values for parents to discuss with their children.

Parents may wish to remind children that the film is not intended to represent real life in any way and that in real life cause and effect would be quite different to that portrayed. Parents may also wish to discuss the film’s use of sexual content and innuendo, and put their own views about the importance of sexuality in the context of relationship development.