Ghost Movie

The writing was already on the wall. With paranormal found footage films being all the rage recently, there's bound to be a comedian out there who would amalgamate most elements found in various films, put them all in a comedic spin, and make a feature film out of it. This time, Marlon Wayans beat the crowd to put something out there first, co-producing, co-writing and starring as the lead in this madcap comedy that pokes fun primarily at the Paranormal Activity films, with the usual politically-incorrect, toilet humour all making their way into the story- line, if you can call it that.

Those who are not Paranormal Activity fans may not come to enjoy the loads of silly references made in A Haunted House, where CCTV camera footage, and a hand-held videocam, together with VHS tapes and a web camera, provide choice footage in and around the home of Malcolm (Wayans). Against good advice, he welcomes his girlfriend Kisha (Essence Atkins) to co-habitate with him, only for her to bring along her excess spiritual baggage which includes an invisible friend from long ago. Things start to go the Paranormal Activity way with the closing of doors, strange sounds, and the playing with bed linen at night.

While the jokes come thick and fast most of the time, they do seem to be focused around the theme of sex, especially when Malcolm thinks having Kisha stay with him is that open doorway to passionate love each night. And that's where the unexplained ghouls come knocking on their door to exhibit some of the most outrageous physical comedy for the screen. When dialogue comes into play, then it goes the direction of poking fun at the expense of stereotypes, from an effeminate psychic (Nick Swardson) to a gangsta preacher (Cedric the Entertainer), and even more sex-laced comedy no thanks to their swinging best friend couple (Andrew Daly and Alanna Ubach).

Don't expect too much from this comedy and it's alright, although I had the niggling feeling that most of the best bits were already included in the trailer, which will leave you with anticipation for more, but didn't get delivered for that ultimate laughing high. This is one film that you'll either love if you're in the mood for nonsensical comedy, or after that hard day's work, otherwise you may find yourself frowning at just about any antics that the comedians start to pull off. Me? Crass comedies are my guilty pleasure, so I'm lapping up A Haunted House already.

There were some funny moments (most can be seen in the trailer), but they went for the maximum gross-out/shock value too often, and then tried to milk these jokes for too long. There are a lot of funny ways you can spoof Paranormal Activity, and they only really nailed a couple of them. They also couldn't seem to decide whether the plot was supposed to be "believable" or a vehicle for spoofing the genre like Scary Movie, which I thought was a lot funnier. Cedric the Entertainer was the only supporting character that really stood out. Nick Swardson's character was annoying and not used effectively. It was good for a few laughs, but I wouldn't recommend paying to see it in the theater. Several parts were about as vulgar and disgusting as you will see in a wide release movie.

Okay if you've seen the first Scary Movie and laughed, you'll find this funny. I like silly/dumb funny so I was cracking up at many parts. Some folks are looking for witty, award winning comedy, full of heartfelt all-around good jokes. If this is you, skip out on this one. Overall, I'd give it a 6.5/7. Some parts were simply dumb, but that's to be expected. If you have 10 bucks, an hour and a half, and you wouldn't mind a laugh or two, I say go for it. If you're looking for wit, class, and style, keep it moving. Still unsure? Okay I'll tell you the movie, without spoiling it. Basically a guy has his girlfriend move into his house. He's skeptical, because his friends have warned him about the dangers of having a girlfriend move in, ya know, no more dream-girlfriend. Anyways, she moves in and stuff starts getting weird. With the increasing weirdness, more characters are introduce to help stop the weirdness. It's a movie with a simple plot, simple characters, and a silly flow. If this sounds good to you, you'll love it!

*1/2 out of **** (ROTTEN)

Channel the New Year. Already in the second week, the Tomato Meter is at its lowest- a dashing seven percent, and with a spoof movie. This cannot end well. I will admit, the trailer had me chuckling. I'm big on stereotypical humor, and from time to time I like to succumb myself to just stupid, dumb fun. Being a fan of the first Scary Movie certainly doesn't hurt matters.

With that being said, "A Haunted House" is exactly what you'd expect... and not much else. In terms of humor, the ratio's about 2:5. That might seem like a bad mark, which it is, but for a film that aims at the lowest common denominator and scores a higher denominator, it's not too shabby. Acting/story, well, you don't go to these kinds of movies for that. Same goes for editing/choreography.

There's not much you can say about this film. This is one of those cases where you either are the audience FOR this film or you're not. If you're a fan of the first two Scary Movies, have an admiration for the Wayans brothers, and dig the advertisements for this film, you'll walk out of there with some good laughs here and there. If you completely despise these movies, or this type of humor in general, you'll walk out feeling cheated.

However, be warned, this is NOT a kids film (ala a Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer production or even the last Scary Movies that were PG-13). Tons of sex scenes (played for laughs though), nudity, drugs, and such abound.

All in all, it's not as bad as you're led to believe, but it's still pretty flimsy.

Whether or not this movie was stereotypical should be set aside for reviews. Focus on the main parts of this movie which were to utterly make fun of paranormal activity and the devil inside. I felt like this movie is under-rated. I thought they got straight into funny and absolutely making fun of paranormal activity 1 very quickly. The first scene was based on making fun of the camera work of paranormal activity in the bed room. Although these sorts of comedies are always a stupid sort of funny, I laughed throughout this movie, especially at the character of Chip the psychic; whose main goal is to bring out the gay demons in Malcolm the main character. I had a good laugh and if you can score some tickets for cheap its not a bad, make you laugh at stupid comedy, type of movie.