(15, 83mins) Anna Faris, Craig Bierko, Conchita Campbell, Beau Mirchoff, Regina Hall, Leslie Nielsen, Carmen Electra. Directed by David Zucker.

The fourth and thankfully final instalment of the Scary Movie series is the best yet.

Unfortunately, given the dubious quality of the first three films, this is hardly a ringing endorsement for a franchise which has always lacked imagination and invention.

Fittingly enough, Scary Movie 4 goes out with a bang (the almost total destruction of the world), poking fun at films such as The Grudge, King Kong, Saw, Saw II, The Village and War Of The Worlds.

Celebrity cameos litter the rambling screenplay, which cobbles together a rag-tag selection of pop culture references and spoofs with no attempt whatsoever to create a cohesive whole.

Very occasionally, when you least expect it, writers David Zucker, Craig Mazin and Jim Abrahams hit the mark, such as the President of the United States (Nielsen) learning of the alien invasion whilst reading a book about a duck with school children.

More often than not, though, the trio of writers roasts the old chestnuts - bowel movements, bodily fluids, innuendo ("That's okay, I've taken balls to the face before") - until we can stand no more.

At the centre of this madness is Cindy Campbell (Faris), the onetime plucky television news reporter who has turned her back on the media to seek employment as a healthcare professional.

Soon enough, she is hired to care for an old woman (Cloris Leachman) whose house is haunted by the ghost of a dead boy (Garrett Masuda).

Thankfully, the next door neighbour is handsome yet dumb dock worker Tom Ryan (Bierko), whose two kids Rachel (Campbell) and Robbie (Mirchoff) soon find themselves in the midst of an extraterrestrial invasion.

While giant tripods (modelled on a certain personal music player) roam the countryside, zapping every human in sight, Cindy embarks on a journey to find the dead boy's father (Bill Pullman), leading her to cross paths with sexstarved best pal Brenda (Hall).

Scary Movie certainly looks slick and the special effects are actually quite impressive, especially the War Of The Worlds sequences, but there's no tangible humour underpinning most of this carnage.

Praise be that it's only 83 minutes.