or “Un-Living Color”
Featuring: Marlon “A Haunted House” Wayans , Jaime “DOA: Dead or Alive” Pressly , Ashley “Behaving Badly” Rickards
Director: Michael “A Haunted House” Tiddes
Writers: Marlon “A Haunted House” Wayans , Michael “A Haunted House” Tiddes
Origin: USA
Sequel to: A Haunted House
Review_____
“It’s spicy going in, but it’s twice as spicy going out!”
Well, last week was Thanksgiving, and though I was considering jumping right into ThanksKilling 3 for this review, I may need another killer turkey movie for next year’s Feast of Gluttonsaurus. Besides, I’ve got all these leftovers to get rid of before they go bad (or worse), including today’s helping of dark meat that nobody asked for: A Haunted House 2. NON-racist pun intended! I’m one of those people who thinks the NAACP should really reconsider replacing that ‘C’ with something a bit more post-Jim Crow repeals. You know, without going full-on Nas at the same time. Now that I’ve made everything awkward, let’s move on!
In the prior installment of this ersatz Scary Movie franchise, Marlon Wayans moved into a fancy new house with his girlfriend, his dog got ran over, he sexually assaulted some stuffed animals, his white cuckold neighbor (played by the high school principal from “Eastbound & Down”) tried to get him to join the wife’s Mandingo Party, and Nick Swardson kept trying to have sex with him. For like, almost the entire movie. Remember how the first Scary Movie installments were kinda funny about a decade and a half ago? Yeah, the littlest Wayans brother has apparently been in cryogenic stasis since then, cuz he just resurrected the same jokes after the rest of us said our goodbyes and moved on with our lives. Amidst all of the inanity and “same old shit” jokes, there was something about a ghost haunting the house (the epitome of “keep it simple, stupid” movie titling). Cedric the Entertainer (I’m assuming he’s a hipster and that name is some big ironic *wink* thing) showed up dressed like a ghetto preacher to threaten the specter, stuff happened, the end. All caught up? Great. Now, for the sequel that every skid mark who paid money to see White Girls and Little Man begged and pleaded for: A Haunted House 2.
When we last left Malcolm Johnson (Marlon Wayans), he and his girlfriend Kisha may or may not have survived the poltergeisting of their home by a malicious presence. It was a cliffhanger. I preferred to imagine that Malcolm had just been vertically torn in half from taint to cranium and leave it at that, but my dreams of imagined dismemberment are yet again dashed amidst the jagged rocks of reality. We start off our sequel with Malc trying to restrain his Exorcist reject lady love Kish (Essense Atkins) in the back of his semi-hard thug-lifer cuzin Ray Ray (Affion Crockett)’s car. On their way to the hospital, Double R wrecks his ride, and he and Malc escape relatively unscathed on foot, leaving the presumably deceased Deadite dream date in the backseat while they flee the scene. Given the possibility of having to explain the situation to a cop (who are mostly racist white guys, after all), they probably made the right choice. If I had a dollar for every crime scene I had to leave an expired significant other at, I could afford that new Clive Barker director’s cut of Nightbreed on blu-ray (the Limited Edition) and a machine to play it on. What can I say, I’m not a great boyfriend! Don’t judge me.
Given that the opening sequence is shot in a more traditional cinematic style, you’d start off thinking that Wayans and Tiddes chose to drop the “found footage” format of the first. The mild feeling of relief you may have from reading that is quickly amended as we jump ahead 1 Year/12 Months/52 weeks/365 days/8766 hours/525960 minutes later (give or take), as Malcolm’s moving into a new home and recording everything on a network of home security cameras and hand-cams, cell phone cams and stuffed animal nanny cams. And if you thought they weren’t going to make the joke about also installing a toilet cam, for better or worse you’d be wrong. I’ll leave which one up to you. Not one for the bachelor lifestyle, Malcolm’s moving into said domicile with his new white girlfriend Megan (Jamie Pressly) and her two kids: slutty jail bait daughter Becky (Ashley Rickards) and wienery son Wyatt (Steele Stebbins), who has an “invisible friend” named Tony that acts like an extra from the “Gin & Juice” video. The new place gives Malc the heebies, no doubt soon to be followed by the jeebies, otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie and I wouldn’t have anything to complain about. Save for everything else in the world, naturally.
Before you can say “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!”, the house is discovered to be just chock full of parodic possession pieces, including an ominous box inscribed with Hebrew text (a la The Possession) Becks finds in the basement, a projector Malcolm finds along with old film reels of a demonic entity (huh huh “titty”) attempting (and failing) to murder the previous tenants (a la Sinister), and an uggo old doll found in a wardrobe named Abigail (a la the titular toy of Annabelle) that reeks of eau de thiscantbegood. Speaking of, if you thought Marlon Wayans fluff backing stuffed animals was entertainment in A Haunted House, wait until you see the acts he commits on a doll modeled after a little girl. Then turns one grotesque joke into an entire storyline. Oh yes. Permit me to Captain Willard as I say, “The comedy… the comedy… the horror…”.
HH2 is the living, breathing definition of “more of the same” in comparison to its predecessor. Rather than dealing with the cuckold couple, this time we’ve got a pair of “paranormal investigators” (Hayes MacArthur and Missi Pyle) to joke on The Conjuring. We’ve gotta deal with Gabriel Iglesia, because black jokes need to be supplemented with Mexican jokes since they don’t have Nick Swardson around for more gay gags. Cedric’s drugged up ex-con preacher is back to give us more of his bullshtick (this movie deserves a pun that bad). Woo-fuckin-hoo. Mandingo Parties return, despite the lack of bored suburban white people, only this time with a big slab of “Sexual Chocolate” Mark Henry. Weird, given the WWE’s “placate families first” policy from the last 10 years, which you’d think would prevent one of their wrestlers appearing in a gangbang scene. Meh. C’est la stuff.
Beyond his own rehashed material, HH2 reminds that Marlon Wayans is still the Sean Combs of comedy. When he’s not running his old jokes through the Xerox, this forty-two year old man’s still “sampling” his other bits from Loony Tunes. You know that “living balloon” thing in old cartoons where one character uses a bicycle pump to inflate another character, and the inflated character then flies around the scene while he/she/it deflates? Yep. It happens. Just like shit happens. Coincidence? No. Conspiracy.
And so it goes. We were just dumped upon by a direct doppleganger of the last movie. Given that the sequel employs the same writers, director, and star, I got what I expected. If you hated the first as I did, prepare for flashbacks. If you inexplicably loved the first (due to some kind of inbreeding, head trauma or being a suburban white/Asian kid), you’ve found something else to keep you away from society for another 90 minutes, of which I’m sure society is appreciative. Speaking of, sitting through the entire movie was such a chore that I swear on my dybbuk that I checked the runtime four times in the last half hour of this movie, desperate for it to finish. Much like every woman I’ve ever had sex with has done the same to me while in the act of “sweatin’ ‘n gruntin’”. I tried willing it to go faster with my mind, but just popped a blood vessel.
Sorry if anybody feels short changed by this episode, as there are only so many ways I can say “IT’S THE SAME FUCKING MOVIE!” before I might as well just copy and paste it a few hundred times like a lazy Jack Torrence. Call me David Carradine if you’ve gotta, but I’m ending this early. On a final note, I feel like our creative geniuses (term used loosely… like looser than a prolapsed colon) originally wanted to be witty about their half-assed approach to a follow-up and call it A Haunted House Too, but honestly couldn’t figure out which proper usage of the word to/too/two/tu to use, so they played it safe and just went numerical. This is a thing I choose to believe, and I will continue to believe so for my benefit. Just like I’m going to lie to myself about this series dying at 2 and never besmirching my view screen ever again. Don’t shatter my illusion. It’s all I have to keep me sane until UPS delivers my Tiffany Shepis love doll from Taiwan.
Moral of the Story: Sometimes it pays to keep half a dozen bug zappers on hand.
“Did I remember to put the dog outside when I left?”
“Oh shit! I didn’t put the dog outside when I left!”
“Wait… do I even have a dog?!”
“I told you not to keep the Preparation H right next to the toothpaste. We’re both going to be tasting this for the rest of the day.”
“It’s me, everybody! Expect me to recycle all of the same stereotype jokes Cheech Marin’s been doing for years, only without the talent! Arriba!”
I see London, I see France, now I need a change of pants.
Yep. That’s comedy. Ha. Ha. You know what would make this REALLY funny? If he was trying to jam his dick into Leech Woman from Puppet Master.
That most awkward of moments when your girlfriend catches you jackin’ it to her grandma’s bathing suit pics from last year’s trip to Myrtle Beach.
Proof to women that men do know the pride and joy that comes with the miracle of giving birth. Some of us even take pictures to proudly share with our friends.
Marlon Wayans goes past the point of redemption by becoming that most loathsome of subhuman creatures: a hipster.
While pouring over outtake reels for “The Wayans Bros.” DVD box set’s special features disc, Marlon is baffled by the alarming lack of footage featuring him baring his ass or sexually assaulting children’s playthings. Everything is deemed useless and Wayans retires to his bedroom to shove his dick into a Teddy Ruxpin.
Jaime Pressly, after being told by her agent that she still has two sequels left on her Dead or Alive contract. (Don’t worry folks, they’ll never be made.)
When your parents are visiting you for the weekend, never leave them alone in your house. You’re just asking to come home to them committing the marriage act on your kitchen table.
When this movie promised I’d see Marlon Wayans with a cock on his lips, I expected something far worse. What a relief!
“Come on, white boy. I’m heading to the shower and need you to scrub my back. And don’t you try taking advantage of me while we’re in there. I told you last time that just because we’re in prison doesn’t mean we have to have sex with each other!”
Marlon when he received notice that his services wouldn’t be needed for the GI Joe sequel once the ink on The Rock’s contract dried.
Hey. It’s like that scene in Knocked Up, and since no black people saw Knocked Up, the target audience will think this is hilarious. You know what I’d rather be watching right now? Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back… Why, what did you think I was going to say?
A screenshot from Godfrey Ho’s next project Mexican Terminator: Vampire Ninja Kids Return. Expect several completely unrelated scenes of hopping vampires and neon garbed ninjas to be spliced into it somehow.
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Anubis will return next time in
“Tony Starkner’s TechWar”
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