A Haunted House

 

Watching A Haunted House, I kept on finding myself wishing I was having as much fun as the cast up on the screen seemed to be having.  The movie is energetically made, with the cast willingly throwing themselves into the movie's often very silly material.  I just didn't find myself laughing.  Maybe it's just me.  Maybe you'll enjoy it.  If you like loud, thunderous farts blasting on the soundtrack, and find jokes involving homophobia and child abuse funny, you must certainly will.

The movie stars and was co-written by Marlon Wayans, who had some success parodying horror films back with 2000's Scary Movie.  He had less success a year later when the studio forced him to pump out the uninspired Scary Movie 2 exactly one year later.  Fans will obviously walk in, hoping for a similar experience to the original Scary Movie, but what they'll get is something closer to its sequel.  Interestingly enough, both this movie and Scary Movie 2 are based around spoofing ghost movies.  Maybe that particular genre of horror does not lend itself to parody very well.  This time, Wayans is targeting the "found footage" horror film with his satire, specifically the Paranormal Activity films.  He also throws in a few references to The Devil Inside, The Blair Witch Project, and I Know What You Did Last Summer.  But since those last two films were already spoofed back in the first Scary Movie, isn't he just repeating himself?

Wayans plays Malcolm, who has decided to videotape every aspect of his life around the same time his girlfriend of two years, Kisha (Essence Atkins), moves in to his home.  Things do not start on the right foot, as Kisha runs over Malcolm's dog as she pulls into the driveway.  She moves in, regardless, and almost immediately, the camera and the home security system start picking up ominous and unexplained events happening in the middle of the night while they sleep.  They hire a gay psychic (Nick Swardson) who seems more interested in getting in bed with Malcolm, than helping with their paranormal problem, but he eventually does state that he senses an evil presence in the house.  It's right about this time that Kisha has to confess that she made a deal with the devil once for a pair of shoes, and ever since then, she's been haunted by an invisible and malevolent spirit named Tony who wants to possess her.

A Haunted House follows the trend of a lot of recent spoof films, in that it essentially borrows the plot and famous scenes of the movie it is imitating, and then throws in a lot of crass jokes about farting, sex, sexual diseases, and other subjects that are supposed to be shocking, but usually come off as being desperate.  There are a few scenes where the movie actually does try to make fun of the cliches of the film it is supposed to be poking fun at, but it never goes far enough.  For example, early on, there is a running gag about how Malcolm's Latino housekeeper (Marlene Forte) can suddenly pop up in front of the camera at random, as unnecessary side characters are likely to do in a horror film.  But, the movie doesn't take this joke any further than this basic level, and forgets about it soon after.  Another scene that could have possibly delivered some laughs is a scene where Malcolm and Keisha are surrounded by paranormal activity, yet pretend that nothing is wrong, poking fun at the clueless heroes who usually inhabit these films.  Once again, the idea is funnier than the execution.

In the great classic spoof films like Airplane! or The Naked Gun, they would usually take cliches and scenes from different film genres, and then string them together with a thin plot.  A Haunted House is more or less a series of blackout gags, with very little connecting them.  It's simply recreating familiar scenes and images at random, and usually turning it into a joke about oral sex or herpes.  Some scenes simply mystified me, and made me wonder why the filmmakers thought they were funny in the first place.  Why are we supposed to be laughing when Malcolm suddenly starts having sex with and violating various stuffed animals for no reason while he waits for Keisha to come to bed?  And why does the movie linger on this for what seems like almost two minutes?  What are we supposed to find funny about the videotape of Keisha's eighth birthday party, which ends with her father abusing her?  Maybe I'm better off not knowing.

 

So yeah, the movie is obviously junk, but it doesn't have the decency to even be memorably bad junk.  Marlon Wayans was obviously trying to push the boundaries of good taste, but the movie comes off being mostly flat and uninspired.  This seems to be a trend this year, as there were trailers for two other films before this one that both promised to be the most shocking and sickening comedies to hit theaters.  Those films would be Movie 43 and InAPPropriate Comedy.  I have no doubt that these movies will leave good taste behind.  Whether or not they will actually be funny is another question.  I don't know about you, but I find being funny harder than grossing someone out.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com! 

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