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A Haunted House
| Released |
19 June 2013 |
| Director |
Mike Tiddes |
Starring
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Marlon Wayans, Essence Atkins, Cedric the Entertainer, Nick Swardson, David Koechener |
| Writer(s) |
Marlon Wayans, Rick Alvarez |
| Producer(s) |
Rick Alvarez, Marlon Wayans |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
86 minutes |
| Genre |
Comedy, horror |
| Rating |
16 |
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Frightful.
If, on my death bed, I am entreated to produce a few pearls of wisdom from my time spent on earth, I will have precious little to say. What I do stand by though, are two general rules; never spend time in the company of anyone who describes themselves as “wacky” and never voluntarily watch a film that is being sold as “outrageous.” A Haunted House – an “outrageous” horror spoof that stars “wacky” ol’ Marlon Wayans, is a rule breaking double whammy and a duly painful viewing experience.
A Haunted House is a horror spoof in the tradition of the Scary Movie franchise and takes its cues from two sources, Paranormal Activity and The Devil Inside (as if it wasn’t bad enough having to sit through the real thing). Wayans and co-star Essence Atkins play Malcolm and Kisha, a couple who have just moved in together when ghostly occurrences begin to plague them. Malcolm first sets up a series of video cameras to investigate before calling in back up from a psychic (Nick Swardson), a priest (Cedric the Entertainer) and a ghost hunter (David Koechner).
Anyone familiar with Wayans’ execrable output, or with the films that A Haunted House takes as its inspiration, could sketch out a checklist of every gag that will pop up in the movie in the space of about five minutes (how it took two people to write the damn thing is anybody’s guess). There will be: 1. Fart gags. 2. Sexual relations with the ghost. 3. A lisping homosexual making unwanted advances on a central character. 4. Somebody, perhaps the ghost, will get comically stoned. 5. More fart gags. All are present and correct, plus more unfunny and deeply unpleasant gags that only the most puerile mind could concoct (the sequence where Wayans gets intimate with his cuddly toy collection made me want to crawl out of my own skin with embarrassment).
In short, A Haunted House is awful and I have no idea who would want to subject themselves to it. And yet, A Haunted House 2 already has a page on IMDB - perhaps Wayans has made a pact with the devil himself...
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Linda O’Brien |
