I have a confession to make, I love parody films. The only problem is I'm not sure why. I find the whole genre to be stale, stupid and obvious in the most grating way possible. Yet every time I hear that another Scary Movie sequel is in production my heart races like a candy coated lamb at spring time.

I guess you could say my masochistic love is sort of like when you compulsively run your tongue over a particularly painful canker sore. You know it hurts but you do it anyway. Again you could say that but you'd be wrong. Because nobody willfully seeks out mouth sores.

As in previous entries, Scary Movie 4 is little more than a collection of spoofs clumsily book-ended by a plot that's about as wafer thin and incoherent as Kate Moss after a 72 hour coke binge.

Throughout its scant 80 minute running time, Anna Faris (who should resign herself to the fact that she'll be starring in these films for the rest of her natural life) and Craig Bierko encounter various comical situations which either require them to smack their heads off of an endless series of blunt objects or slip on a pile of dog crap as they fall backwards into an enormous puddle of piss where an unconvincing Michael Jackson stand-in looks on giggling girlishly. Oh and at times they also appear in a number of scenes that mock recent horror movies.

As in most parody films, "Scary Movie 4" never quite hits its satirical targets effectively. As a result some of the spoofs are much more effective than others. The pre-credits skewering of "Saw" gets points for the brazen weirdness of pairing up and then immediately killing off portly fraud Dr. Phil and Shaquille "Kazaam" O'Neill. The film also works best whenever it deconstructs the stodgy pretentions of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village". Unfortunately, the Grudge parody seems like an afterthought and could we please call a moratorium on "Brokeback Mountain" jokes? Yeah I get it. They're cowboys who happen to be gay. That is so HIGH-larious! Why don't you go back to watching The Mind of Mencia and leave the rest of us who don't drool all over ourselves alone.

Dumb as hell and proud of it, "Scary Movie 4" is about as funny as it is cringe inducing. It's no "Airplane" but thankfully it's no "Date Movie" either.