not every scary spoof needs a sequel

I'm trying to think what I really enjoyed about this movie. I don't want to be glib and just say it was short. I think there were parts that were funny. It had some hallmarks of classic Wayans humor that shone through at times. So there were elements of the overall movie that worked out ok in certain scenes. Oh, I know what was good, Gabriel Iglesias was hilarious. Unfortunately his role was limited and he was mostly confined to one formulaic joke that they replayed ad nauseum. So they didn't get the most use out of him as I felt like the probably could. But as someone who is a big fan of "Fluffy", I was very pleasantly surprised to see him pop up in the film. I suppose if the cast is something we are highlighting, seeing Jamie Pressley back on screen was nice. She hasn't ever had a ton of range but when she's playing to her strengths she can be entertaining to watch. I think they cast her for exactly that reason so the energy she brought to the movie worked well within the framework they established.

Ok I can't really spend a lot more time reaching for good things to say. I'm not necessarily itching to just tear this one apart but for a movie that is 87 minutes in FULL runtime and with 35 minutes left on that counter I was desperate for it to end, it was not a good movie. The first thing that didn't work for me was the return to the found footage schtick. It worked ok when we were parodying Paranormal Activity. it was on point. I didn't love it because found footage just got lazy and pervasive in the genre. I don't have a lot of patience for it. Its not that I won't watch them because I've seen some excellent ones, even outside of the standards. Taking of Deborah Logan was one of my favorite movies from last year. When done properly, it's a lot of fun. Many times it's just a simple way of avoiding filming responsibly. Employing it here just felt like we were kicking things off in that lazy vein. Haunted House movies didn't have to strictly be found footage until they decided that this is how we make these movies. And there were a lot of times it didn't fit this motif. So it felt clunky and out of place against the elements of the story they were trying to establish in this movie.

The second glaring mistake is the writing. In addition to returning to the well for the same filming style, we decided to port over the same villain. I know it's a sequel but really it just felt like we had enough cutting room floor material mixed with new jokes that work more as sketches and we threw it all together. They had low hanging fruit on how to make fun of more modern horror films. There was a really weird stalker mistress story with an Annabelle rip off. We drove that whole joke WELL into the ground and there was not enough gas in the tank to begin with. There was a whole Sinister take that didn't fit in with any of the overall story, if I can really even call it that. There was a promiscuous teen girl and a weird kid they made swear a lot and act effeminate when they wanted to. It felt like a lot of half jokes and dumb things that made Marlon Wayans laugh at one point that they just wrote down and filmed. None of it went together. None of it made sense as a movie. It just sort of happened and I was there to see it. Unfortunately.

Finally I just have to really come at the humor. I'm not above the low hanging fruit of all of the Wayans favorite categories. We loaded it up with unnecessary sex and I saw Marlon's bare backside more times than I cared to. Which is all of the times that I saw it. We beat the drum of fart jokes pretty hard too. Yeah, they're going to be in a spoof somewhere. Maybe you get a couple of them just because the genre allows for it. But on top of other standard trope humor it just got old. Marlon being over the top in one stereotypical fashion tried to carry a lot of the times they weren't making genital or poop jokes. It really just felt like it was a collection of sketches that were half written, filled in with jokes a 10 year old would write, and then glued together in about 80 minutes of shot footage. I'm not looking for a lot of meaning or a great story. I went into it assuming that a lot of the comedic fodder was what I was going to get. So when they exhausted me even with that expectation already accounted for, it just took a lot to finish a movie that was not long to begin with.

For now, I'm not putting this movie fully in the same category as Crackcoon. I would feel bad making it sit in the corner with such a horrific train wreck of an attempt at a movie. But it's close. It's easily a D-. Like you might pass the semester on this grade BARELY. But it's probably more because they don't want you coming back again next year. In looking back at last year's entry, the first film sat a lot more positively with me. So this is one you can easily pass on, especially if you watched the first one and enjoyed it. That one wasn't amazing but it was funny. This one felt like the desperate cash grab with nothing to say and a forced, pale attempt at exploiting the cracks on contemporary films of its time frame. If you like the Wayans brand of humor, especially Marlon being exceptionally Marlon, you might still get something out of this one. All I can say is that I was desperate to turn it off and happy there are no other films in this franchise. It's not shocking to see that they closed this chapter after this entry. So do with that as you please. Watch at your own risk. You might laugh a few times but there's a lot left to be desired. And that's about all we have to say about A Haunted House 2. It was a movie. I watched it. Now I wrote about it. The end. Thankfully. Lets see if tomorrow has something more for us. Until then, I'll catch you on the flip side.