Despite the challenge of finding one person to admit they liked Marlon Wayans’ found footage parody, A Haunted House, it made enough of its money back to fastrack a sequel. And here it is. A Haunted House 2: a retirement home where jokes and artistic integrity go to die.
Following on from the ‘plot’ of the first, Malcolm (Marlon Wayans) has started a relationship with a single mother of two children played by a frustratingly wasted Jaime Pressly. Their idyllic lifestyle is mitigated when Malcolm finds a series of snuff films in his attic and his step-daughter becomes possessed.
It’s not just the fact that this film has been thrown together to make a quick buck that offends the most. It’s the racist, sexist and homophobic epithets sprinkled throughout the script like hundreds and thousands on fairy bread. Really offensive fairy bread. Many bad taste comedies are successful because at their heart there is sense of irony and, importantly, intelligence. This film has neither.
Perhaps A Haunted House 2 can best can be surmised by the scene where Wayans has sex with the doll from The Conjuring. Nobody asked to see it. Nobody wants to see it.
John Noonan 