While the original parodied slasher flicks like Scream, Keenen Ivory Wayans's sequel to Scary Movie takes comedic aim at haunted house movies. A group of students visit a mansion called "Hell House...
WHAT I LIKED: I normally start these reviews by saying what I liked about the film in question, but frankly there's nothing at all to like about Scary Movie 2, so let's instead get into what's not to like, because there's a whole lot of that...
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Yes ultimately this supposed horror-spoof is about as nuanced, funny and subversive as a public execution, as every single thing that's supposed to be amusing here falls flat on its face and the whole thing actually comes across as pretty malicious and unpleasant in the end.
What it effectively does is take a bunch of stuff from classic genre movies and fits it all into a ridiculous narrative that over-stretches every riff its emulating. But where in some spoofs that kind of tactic works, here every single thing serves more as a vehicle for humour which is completely juvenile, ridiculous and utterly disgusting. It all begins with an Exorcist recreation, but for some unknown reason the script decides it would be funny to have Linda Blair's equivalent "talking dirty" to the vicar. As the film begins it's contrived that a professor (a-la 'The Haunting') will take a bunch of students to a haunted house but will bizarrely spend his time spying on girls. Once there, in a strange 'Nightmare on Elm Street' sketch, one of the central characters is in bed when contacted by a demon, only for her to begin having sex with it, and another student is attacked by a demonic cat like in 'Pet Semetary' only for it to turn into some kind of strange Rocky-like boxing match. If that doesn't sound bad enough, there's a clown under one student's bed like in 'Poltergeist,' only here it's decided it would be funny for the victim to rape the clown instead, and that's not to mention the whole 'Charlie's Angels' bit at the end where the three central female characters continue to be degraded by accidentally changing into their underwear and - amongst other things - using their giant breasts to battle off the ghosts they're fighting. It's all crass tosh basically, and whilst nothing can explain the hopelessly unfunny caretaker of the house or the thoroughly distasteful wheelchair jokes, what's arguably worst about it all is the natural sense that because it's satiring these things, we're somehow supposed to think it's being clever. Let me clear it up for you: it's really not. Whether you've seen the films it's referencing or not, the way it "subverts" the things it's parodying is crass, uncomfortable and extremely unfunny. This is probably the most distasteful film I've ever seen, and it's undoubtedly the least funny. Heck there's more chance of smiles in Schindler's List and 12 Years a Slave.
VERDICT: I don't actively seek out terrible movies, so when they come along its a bit of a rarity for me. This vulgar, crass, disgusting and unfunny supposed "satire" is easily one of the worst films I've ever had the misfortune to witness. I won't be watching any of the sequels - or its predecessor - that's for sure, and you shouldn't either.
