Last month Scary Movie 5 squeezed the last drops of blood red humour from Paranormal Activity, now it’s time for one of the originators of that series to do it all again….
Writer, producer and star Marlon Wayans has taken all the experience acquired through his family’s success with the spoof genre and thrown it all up over the found footage film, showing the world the laughs he believes his intended audience is so desperate for.
Malcolm (Wayans- Requiem For A Dream, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka) has decided to treat himself to a hi-tech camera and film the prestigious event of his new girlfriend Kisha (Essence Atkins– Dance Flick, Are We There Yet?) moving into his home. Soon after, strange things happen with bed sheets, doors, everything else that everyone else has already thought of, so Malcolm calls on part-time paranormal TV host and full-time racist Dan The Security Man to install more cameras to discover the supernatural truth, with the assistance of a pimp priest, the orgy loving neighbours, a gay medium and their latino housemaid, Rosa. Cue the usual innuendo, slurs, sight gags and discomfort.
It soon transpires that Malcolm is finding it equally difficult to adjust to his change in relationship status as he is with forming an uncomfortable spiritual menage-a-trois.
Limiting itself to, essentially, the plots of Paranormal Activity and The Devil Inside, both already lampooned mercilessly by every teenager with a YouTube account, A Haunted House has very few directions to go other than taking things to the extremes. There are some scenes which do work perfectly well on a more traditionally knockabout level, an oblivious Malcolm failing to see Kisha being hurled around the house, fun and games with the ghost during a brief lull in hostilities, but for the most part Wayans fills its thankfully brief running time with fart, sodomy and rape jokes, the latter of which being based around Kisha finding the ghost’s advances more satisfying than her boyfriend’s. Hilarious.
And just when you thought there could be no more laughter to be had from a tired formula, A Haunted House 2 is already set to be released early next year. A tired, offensive and unwelcome addition to an increasingly unoriginal genre.