Chris Elliot

  • Scary Movie 4 (2006)

    Scary Movie 4 (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, April 2006) Roughly similar in tone to the previous Scary Movie 3, this one is a comedy grab-bag that chiefly goes after (in decreasing order of importance) War Of The Worlds, The Grudge and The Village, with other assorted pokes and tweaks at other films (Saw, Million Dollar Baby and Brokeback Mountain) and pop-culture icons. Scary Movie 4‘s biggest problem is that it’s quite happy to pastiche other films, but seldom goes for the jugular: Movie critics had funnier jabs at War Of The Worlds during the summer of 2005 than the parody ever manages to put together. (The constantly-screaming little girl shtick isn’t even mocked.) Scary Movie 4, alas, is almost completely bloodless in its parodies: it recreates the original with some goofiness but seldom more. (This being said, the production values are often impressive, especially considering the short shooting schedule) Even the rare political gags only make us wish for much more. It’s no surprise, then, if some of the film’s cleverest moments stand completely apart from previous films. As for the actors, well Anna Faris is still cute in an increasingly irritating clueless shtick, while Craig Bierko does well with the thankless task of parodying Tom Cruise. Still, it’s Regina Hall who steals the show as the insatiable Brenda: her arrival in the movie kicks it up another notch (plus, doesn’t she look unbelievably gorgeous in founder’s-era clothing?) Yes, Scary Movie 4 will make you laugh. Dumb, cheap, easy laughs but still; consider it your reward for slogging through endless mainstream horror films.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, October 2021) One of the side-benefits of my Scary Movie series marathon is a renewed appreciation of how the series is broken down into three distinct phases, and how closely related are the films of those phases. Phase one is the Wayans Brothers phase—closely following genre protocols, often very funny but just as frequently too gross or too dumb for any laughs. Phase Two, the Zucker phase, is more controlled in tone but deliberately chaotic in plot, with fewer gross-out gags but far more comic violence that quickly gets old. Scary Movie 4 is very much of a piece with its predecessor, blending together the plots of very different films in order to create a clothesline on which to hang smaller film-specific parodies. There’s an effort to go beyond simple re-creation to create a more comic tone, and the number of known names in the cast is proof enough of the budget that went into the thing. Anna Faris makes a final appearance in the series (Phase Three of the series is the Faris-less one, which doesn’t help anything) and once again bears the brunt of much of the gags, but Regina Hall sharply improves the film once she joins in mid-plot. (She does look real nice playing a nymphomaniac in 18th century garb.)  Craig Bierko does well in a role asking him to spoof Tom Cruise, while various smaller roles are held by Leslie Nielsen, Bill Pullman, a pre-stardom Kevin Hart and many others —alas, Chris Elliot is once again a laugh-inhibitor whenever he shows up on-screen. In the end, Scary Movie 4 is not a great spoof comedy, but it’s better than many others (including Scary Movie 2) and works reasonably well when the filmmakers can keep their worst tendencies in check (their fondness for hitting women and children aside, at least they don’t include an excruciatingly long door unlocking/opening sequence). It’s more or less the end of the series, though—Scary Movie 5 is a different, almost unrelated beast, and another other sharp turn lower for a series that doesn’t have a lot of room to spare before hitting the bottom of the barrel.

  • Scary Movie 2 (2001)

    Scary Movie 2 (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2002) The first Scary Movie film was a genuinely amusing satire marred by gratuitous gross-out gags. This one is a poor attempt at a comedy marred by even more gratuitous gross-out gags. It’s not that you’re not grinning (to be fair, the sequences referring to The Exorcist, Mission: Impossible 2 and Charlie’s Angels are worth a discount rental alone if you’re a fan of the original films), it’s that you feel quite guilty for doing so. And whereas the prequel’s gross-out gags had some amusing value, the ones in here are simply mystifying: did someone truly believe, at any moment during the production, that these would be funny? Particularly annoying is Chris Elliot’s character, whose antics are simply perplexing. The rest of the cast is so-so, with Anna Faris doing her best to be as bland as possible and Tim Curry shamelessly collecting a pay-check. (James Woods, however, is as good as usual in his quasi-cameo.) Big fans of satiric comedies might enjoy (“Let’s fight Mad Cow style! Moo! Mutherf…”), but I’d recommend Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th… well before this one. The DVD contains some forty-odd minutes of deleted and alternate scenes, and it’s telling that they are roughly of the same quality than the rest of the film.

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, October 2021) Of all the Scary Movie entries in my pre-Halloween series marathon, Scary Movie 2 was the one I was least looking forward to—I recalled it as a dumb, unfunny, laborious watch. The film’s rushed production history explains a lot: Spurred by the surprise success of the first film, Miramax set up its sequel to be in theatres exactly one year after the debut of its predecessor. In other words, the entire thing has to be written, produced, shot and post-produced in a matter of months—a risky pace even for skilled professionals, and a downright hopeless one for a spoof comedy with extensive writing and post-production work. The result, though, is not as bad as I feared—tasteless and humourless in spots, sure, but with more effective jokes than I remembered as well. It certainly helps to go in with low aspirations and a few alarm signals: Whenever I saw Chris Elliot’s character walk on screen, for instance, I knew that the next moments would be unbearable. I still like the premise of the story, but, of course, I’m a gigantic fan of any “people spend the night in a haunted house” plot. Perhaps the best comic moments occur whenever the film stops with the gross-outs, remembers that there’s more to a spoof than re-creation, and goes for the unexpected. The film’s biggest chuckles (calling them laughs would go too far) take place when the characters get the best out of their supernatural aggressors. It somewhat compensates for the ludicrous amount of physical violence directed at Anna Faris throughout the film. She’s game for everything, but I still prefer Regina Hall’s comic timing. (Perhaps the most timeless pieces of comedy in the first two Scary Movies come from the Wayan Brothers going for acerbic racial commentary which, regrettably, hasn’t dated all that much.)  Still, trying to find nice things to say about better-than-remembered Scary Movie 2 is tough: It doesn’t waste James Woods, but it mishandles Tim Curry, suffers from some terribly unfunny sequences, doesn’t manage to get any charm out of substandard special effects, and constantly demonstrates how it was rushed from conception to delivery. The result is better than expected, but still rather dismal—Ironically, the film would be much better if it was shorter: Get rid of Elliot, most of David Cross’ character, much of the overlong joke-milking (especially when it’s not funny to begin with) and you’d end up with a relatively funnier film, albeit one that wouldn’t qualify for feature-length status. Still, that could be interesting. At least new next few Scary Movie entries in my marathon represent, if I recall correctly, a step up.