With movies such as Airplane!, Top Secret! and The Naked Gun, David Zucker gave bad taste a good name.

His early film parodies were clever and subversive, so it was promising he should take over the Scary Movie franchise from Keenen Ivory Wayans and his brothers Shawn and Marlon.

Though it has moments of unbridled hilarity, Zucker can't sustain the laughs even for 76 minutes.

The biggest problem is Zucker and his writers Brian Lynch and Craig Mazin limit themselves to too few films. They zero in on Signs, The Ring and The Sixth Sense with nods to 8 Mile, Mars Attacks! and The Matrix. In no time, the already thin jokes repeat themselves, getting thinner each time they do.

The first time Charlie Sheen and Simon Rex do their tributes to Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix from Signs it's hilarious as is Camryn Manheim's appearance as the lesbian state trooper who investigates the crop circles.

There's a great running joke with Manheim's hat that is vintage Zucker, as is an extended, naughtier-than-naughty joke with a Michael Jackson lookalike.

The return visits to the farm lose their impact as is definitely the case with all the references to The Ring because Zucker begins recreating scenes instead of poking fun at them.

Leslie Nielsen has been a mainstay of Zucker's comedies but he adds so little to the mayhem as the befuddled president.

Queen Latifah has an inspired cameo as a psychic and George Carlin is hilarious in his Matrix moment as The Architect.

Rex's tribute to rapper Eminem winds itself into one of the film's funniest punchlines and includes a cameo by American Idol judge Simon Cowell.

It's moments like this where Zucker is at his clever best. He really doesn't need to resort to so much juvenile toilet humour.

The scariest thing about Scary Movie 3 is Scary Movie 4 is already in preproduction.

Enough already!

(This film is rated 14-A)

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