It doesn’t even seem like it was that long ago that I was reviewing “A Haunted House”, yet here were are… I wouldn’t call myself a fan of the parody movie, but “Scary Movie” 1 & 2, are still among some of my guilty pleasures. Once the Wayan’s brother’s left that series things went downhill quickly, but those first two installments have something about them that still holds my interest. It’s with that notion that I wanted to give the “A Haunted House” movie the benefit of the doubt, but it still fell a bit short of my “Scary Movie” expectations. And with the sequel landing on my doorstep, I wasn’t too excited to pop it in and review it. Marlon Wayans, Cedric The Entertainer, Essence Atkins and Affion Crocket reprise their roles from this first one, only this time Kisha (Essence Atkins) is possessed by a demon and is hellbent on making Malcolm’s (Wayans) life a living hell. Malcolm has started dating Megan, played by Jaime Pressly, and her two children, but little do they know what they are in for. Kisha begins haunting the family as Malcolm tries his best to rid the house of the evil spirits. It actually sounds a lot like the plot of Scary Movie 2, in that it focuses on a haunting, but it doesn’t even hold a candle to that movie. Scary Movie 2 at least tried to actually parody movies and do it in a semi-creative way, “A Haunted House 2” just tries to gross you out or make you super uncomfortable. Some of the jokes even go a little bit too far for an R-rated horror movie. But overall it’s mostly just juvenile and not that funny. I wouldn’t call myself a huge Marlon Wayans fan, but he’s done much better movies than this, and I’m not sure why he’s reduced himself to this kind of garbage. While I may have given the first “A Haunted House” movie a pass, by review standards, I cannot recommend this one in the slightest. There’s nothing redeeming about this movie, and it was a huge waste of an hour and a half. I actually almost turned it off halfway through, but stuck it out only for the sake of being able to truly tell you to skip this one from start to finish. The only place this blu-ray really shines is the audio and video. Everything is crystal clear, no artifacts, deep blacks, and everything looks as you would expect it to. The audio is presented in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and sounds better than some other movies I’ve watched recently, it’s too bad it was wasted on this flick though. Rounding out the disk is a commentary track from writers Marlon Wayans and Rick Alvarez, and director Michael Tiddes, along with a few deleted an extended scenes that can’t do anything to bring this one back from the dead. If you’re looking for a good horror spoof movie, you’re better of going back and watching the “Scary Movie” movies, rather than wasting your time with this one. I really hope they don’t continue making entries in this series, but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing the Wayans brothers attack a different genre of movie. It’s going to be hard to live up to “Scary Movie” and “Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood” though…
