Scary Movie 4 is the fourth film of the Scary Movie franchise and is directed by David Zucker, written by Jim Abrahams, Craig Mazin and Pat Proft, and produced by Craig Mazin and Robert K. Weiss. It is distributed by The Weinstein Company via its Dimension Films unit in the U.S., and internationally by Buena Vista Distribution (Miramax). It was released on April 14, 2006.
The main plot parodies four movies; The Grudge, The Village, Saw (series), and War of the Worlds.
The film opens as Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil wake up chained in a bathroom with only two minutes to escape as their host, Jigsaw, reveals the room is being filled with a nerve gas. After a few tries, Shaq manages to make a successful free throw with a huge rock in order to get the saw down to cut off their legs. However, Dr. Phil ends up sawing off the wrong foot, thereby remaining chained as they die. The story begins when Cindy Campbell visits her ex-brother-in-law Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen), maintaining continuity from Scary Movie 3, who is helping her in her healthcare profession. However, in spite of being in a relationship with three girls, Logan tries to kill himself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. But he accidentally ingested Viagra pills, resulting in him tumbling over a balustrade and landing on his erect penis, dying a painful death. Later, Cindy receives a tour of a creepy house by the healthcare supervisor, who tries to hide the supernatural stuff caused by a boy before Cindy takes the job of caring for the house's incapacitated owner Mrs. Norris (Cloris Leachman).
Meanwhile, Cindy's neighbor Tom Ryan (Craig Bierko), in a depressed state since his divorce, quits his job as a crane operator at the docks. At a bar afterwards he runs into Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart), who have started a homosexual relationship since they took a trip in the mountains ( Parody of Movie Brokeback Mountain ). Tom gets home, where his ex-wife (Molly Shannon) has just arrived with his children, Robbie and Rachel, who both resent him. Later that day, after accidentally sponge bathing Mrs. Norris with her own urine, Cindy notices the strange events going on in the house, facing Toshio.
The next morning she confides in Tom about the events of the previous night, which leads to a conversation about their past relationships. Cindy has a flashback to her first marriage, showing a big African-American man cussing her out, and then another to her second marriage, to the death of her husband George (Simon Rex) when during her last boxing match against Tiffany Stone, snaps his neck in a freak accident.
As the two share a kiss, the sky suddenly goes stormy and everything electronic stops working - in War of the Worlds computers and televisions stop working, but in this film mobile phones, cars, bikes and even skateboards stop working. (And one man runs out of the lavatory complaining "My bowels have stopped working!") Tom goes to investigate as a gigantic object called triPod emerges to play Karma Chameleon before switching to the "Destroy Humanity" playlist, transforming into a mobile weapon that vaporizes mankind into ash with only their clothes left intact. Cindy runs back into her house and finds Toshio again. They began speaking in "Japanese," which was actually a combination of different Japanese brands. She is told by the ghost boy that she can find the answer to the alien attack when she finds the boy's killer and his father's heart, giving her directions to his father's location with blood writing on the wall, but Cindy couldn't read them, so the writing transformed into a Yahoo map so that Cindy could read it. Tom splits up with Cindy and flees with his kids.
The scene then changes to the President Baxter Harris (Leslie Nielsen) being informed that aliens are attacking while sitting in Edna R. Penhall Elementary School, listening to a book being read about a duck; when his aide Jamison (Alonzo Bodden) comes, he sits motionless, wanting to hear the rest of the story. When Jamison explains that he read the book before and the duck dies, chaos ensues, and the children begin to violently riot as a result. Baxter tries to go on to another story which he mistakenly called "Rumpelforeskin". When Jamison takes him out of the classroom, Baxter tells Jamison to remind him to sign the abortion bill after admitting he just doesn't get children.
Cindy runs into Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall), who was thought to have been dead (and actually did die in Scary Movie 3), and now a local reporter, at a downed plane and together they manage to find the last working car and follow the directions of the ghost boy. Upon taking the car from someone by chucking a solenoid at the driver, played by Lil' Jon, Cindy and Brenda drive past Mahalik and CJ who've mistaken some of the slow-moving, shell-shocked survivors of the alien attack as zombies. Tom and the children continue to travel as some people threaten him, using his gun to get their attention before being forced to submit to losing the car. Back at the White House, President Harris is being briefed about the duck by Jamison as Homeland Security's Harper (Bryan Callen) comes in with an eye-witness to the alien attack. She states that the triPods are indestructible and describes the weapon used by the triPods as a laser that "causes people's clothes to fly off people."
Following the instructions by the Grudge Boy, Cindy and Brenda come across a village a century behind modern times. After unsuccessfully trying to steal clothes off some villagers, they take some from a laundry basket and attempt to fit in. Unfortunately, they are captured by the guards and are taken into a court to decide their fate by Henry Hale (Bill Pullman), the head of the village. During the trial Henry Hale's blind daughter (Carmen Elektra) stumbles into the courtroom, thinking she has found her way home. Mistaking a chest for a privy, she strips and defecates, noisily, to the consternation of the crowded courtroom. Hale rules that Cindy and Brenda may stay in the village, but they may never leave.
