Memo to the Wayans Brothers: That scraping sound you're hearing? It's the bottom of the barrel. Actually, I'm sure you've been hearing that sound for a year now, so it's time to give it up.
I'm not convinced that the Wayans Brothers have truly understood parody since the fleetingly amusing "Don't Be a Menace..." A good first rule of parody, you see, is that you shouldn't parody something that was already a parody to begin with. The original Scary Movie broke that rule, mocking the already self-referential Scream movies. And the people loved Scary Movie and for despite being as memorable as glass of water, it still had its moments. A good second rule for parody is not to mock things that were already horrible, trashy bombs to begin with. Well, Scary Movie 2 is a mock-up of the "recent" slate of "haunted house" movies. But nobody liked House of Haunted Hill or The Haunting. They were just bad movies. But in this distinctly sorry sequel, the Wayans Brothers manage to make the awful even worse. There aren't more than half a dozen chuckles in the movie and with the failed jokes coming pell-mell, this movie becomes painful to sit through.
The movie opens with a brief play on The Exorcist with James Woods in the Max von Sydow role. Marlon Brando was originally going to play the part. But Woods is fine. Certainly better than anything else in the movie. But that scene is over quickly. It's a year after the first Scary Movie and Shorty (Marlon Wayans), Ray (Shawn Wayans), and Cindy (Anna Faris) are in college. There's a joke at the expense of Save the Last Dance that isn't so bad. But then the movie quickly goes into its "plot." A psychology professor (Tim Curry) has assembled a group of students to go to a haunted house for some kind of study. The house has a knocker shaped like huge testicles. It isn't funny. And neither is anything inside the house.
Once everybody is assembled we meet the two disabled characters that the movie will laugh at for the next hour. Chris Elliot plays Hanson, a caretaker with a stupid accent and one baby hand. And David Cross (of Mr. Show) plays Curry's double jointed assistant. Neither character is funny, but they're both plenty annoying. Rounding out the cast we have 90210 alums Tori Spelling and Kathleen Robertson. Neither has any background and their links to the main plot and the characters from the first movie are tenuous. They're just there. As is Christopher Masterson, always reliable on Malcolm in the Middle, totally stranded by awful writing here. Night Court's Richard Moll appears briefly as the least scary, least funny, least interesting villain in the history of cinema (why'd they even bother?).
The characters run around in circles and they make jokes that aren't funny to begin with and get even worse with repetition. A pea soup barfing contest in The Exorcist scene is only worth a chuckle at first and then after it's gone on for a minute it's just mind-boggling. Or a trash-talking parrot. I guess it's funny the first couple times, but by the time it does a "Weakest Link" joke, you realize that it's just past its expiration date. There's an amusing take on Hannibal. The Charlie's Angels joke is good for another chuckle. And... I'm trying to think of other positive moments. But it's just too tough.
The film is badly directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans, but the editing might be its most embarrassing technical feature. What can you say about a movie that runs 82 minutes and still feels like it's laden with too many pregnant pauses. The movie could have been much tighter. That wouldn't have made any of the jokes funnier, but it would have cut ten minutes off the mess.
The other alternative is that the three editors were just working with what the actors gave them and they couldn't find any takes that were better. Every performance is awkward and the movie feels badly improvised. You watch the actors and you can see them waiting for their next lines of dialogue or for the next not-amusing prop to come into play. The best of the acting is grating (Elliot and Cross), but Masterson, Spelling, both Wayans Brothers, Faris, and Regina Hall are frequently shockingly bad. I let Curry and Robertson off the hook because he is totally wasted, while she was always my favorite 90210 girl and I firmly believe that given the right material, she could probably act.
When I saw the movie, nobody laughed. Sure, there were titters for the first fifteen minutes -- anticipatory good humor, if you will. But the main body of the movie, the haunted house scenes, played to total silence. Nobody seemed grossed out. Nobody seemed offended. And certainly nobody seemed amused. Should have kept that "No Sequels" promise, boys. This one's a 1/10 bomb.
I'm not convinced that the Wayans Brothers have truly understood parody since the fleetingly amusing "Don't Be a Menace..." A good first rule of parody, you see, is that you shouldn't parody something that was already a parody to begin with. The original Scary Movie broke that rule, mocking the already self-referential Scream movies. And the people loved Scary Movie and for despite being as memorable as glass of water, it still had its moments. A good second rule for parody is not to mock things that were already horrible, trashy bombs to begin with. Well, Scary Movie 2 is a mock-up of the "recent" slate of "haunted house" movies. But nobody liked House of Haunted Hill or The Haunting. They were just bad movies. But in this distinctly sorry sequel, the Wayans Brothers manage to make the awful even worse. There aren't more than half a dozen chuckles in the movie and with the failed jokes coming pell-mell, this movie becomes painful to sit through.
The movie opens with a brief play on The Exorcist with James Woods in the Max von Sydow role. Marlon Brando was originally going to play the part. But Woods is fine. Certainly better than anything else in the movie. But that scene is over quickly. It's a year after the first Scary Movie and Shorty (Marlon Wayans), Ray (Shawn Wayans), and Cindy (Anna Faris) are in college. There's a joke at the expense of Save the Last Dance that isn't so bad. But then the movie quickly goes into its "plot." A psychology professor (Tim Curry) has assembled a group of students to go to a haunted house for some kind of study. The house has a knocker shaped like huge testicles. It isn't funny. And neither is anything inside the house.
Once everybody is assembled we meet the two disabled characters that the movie will laugh at for the next hour. Chris Elliot plays Hanson, a caretaker with a stupid accent and one baby hand. And David Cross (of Mr. Show) plays Curry's double jointed assistant. Neither character is funny, but they're both plenty annoying. Rounding out the cast we have 90210 alums Tori Spelling and Kathleen Robertson. Neither has any background and their links to the main plot and the characters from the first movie are tenuous. They're just there. As is Christopher Masterson, always reliable on Malcolm in the Middle, totally stranded by awful writing here. Night Court's Richard Moll appears briefly as the least scary, least funny, least interesting villain in the history of cinema (why'd they even bother?).
The characters run around in circles and they make jokes that aren't funny to begin with and get even worse with repetition. A pea soup barfing contest in The Exorcist scene is only worth a chuckle at first and then after it's gone on for a minute it's just mind-boggling. Or a trash-talking parrot. I guess it's funny the first couple times, but by the time it does a "Weakest Link" joke, you realize that it's just past its expiration date. There's an amusing take on Hannibal. The Charlie's Angels joke is good for another chuckle. And... I'm trying to think of other positive moments. But it's just too tough.
The film is badly directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans, but the editing might be its most embarrassing technical feature. What can you say about a movie that runs 82 minutes and still feels like it's laden with too many pregnant pauses. The movie could have been much tighter. That wouldn't have made any of the jokes funnier, but it would have cut ten minutes off the mess.
The other alternative is that the three editors were just working with what the actors gave them and they couldn't find any takes that were better. Every performance is awkward and the movie feels badly improvised. You watch the actors and you can see them waiting for their next lines of dialogue or for the next not-amusing prop to come into play. The best of the acting is grating (Elliot and Cross), but Masterson, Spelling, both Wayans Brothers, Faris, and Regina Hall are frequently shockingly bad. I let Curry and Robertson off the hook because he is totally wasted, while she was always my favorite 90210 girl and I firmly believe that given the right material, she could probably act.
When I saw the movie, nobody laughed. Sure, there were titters for the first fifteen minutes -- anticipatory good humor, if you will. But the main body of the movie, the haunted house scenes, played to total silence. Nobody seemed grossed out. Nobody seemed offended. And certainly nobody seemed amused. Should have kept that "No Sequels" promise, boys. This one's a 1/10 bomb.