"Scary Movie" was less a movie, and more a transcendently puerile, brilliantly idiotic, jaw-dropping spectacle. It pushed the R rating to the breaking point and sought to shatter any and all taboos that still exist in our culture. "Scary Movie 2," though very flawed, is an "honorable" attempt to follow in its predecessor's blood and urine-soaked footsteps.
Gross-out comedies targeting the teen-age demographic are fast becoming a genre unto themselves.
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Both movies fit comfortably into that section and have no higher aims than to shock and get a few cheap laughs. Thus, they both defy criticism. It's impossible to call this movie good because it's frequently terrible, but it can't be called bad because it has several flashes of genius and some genuine belly laughs.
Quite simply, the sequel, like the original, is a "love it or hate it" movie. If the first one was your cup of tea, this one should be very appealing. But if you were lukewarm toward the original, or if you simply can't bring yourself to laugh at a foul-mouthed parrot, a dramatic boxing match with a cat, humor involving every conceivable human bodily fluid or a giant killer marijuana plant, avoid this at all costs.
Almost the entire cast from the original returns for a plot that involves a haunted house rather than spoofing "Scream 2" and slasher movies. (Interestingly, one member of the cast - Regina Hall - was stabbed to death in a movie theater in the original and her living presence here goes entirely unexplained.)
The survivors of the original "Scary" massacre are now in college and trying to get on with their lives when a sinister professor (Tim Curry, clearly relishing his part) rounds them up to spend the night in a haunted house. They run into an encyclopedic array of supernatural occurrences, including deadly clown puppets, walking skeletons, a horny invisible man, demonic possession and houseplants gone amuck. With the help of "state-of-the-art" scientific equipment and "Charlie's Angels"-style martial arts, they go through the night fighting the sinister forces.
The film is most flawed when it comes to the plot. Though taking aim at such supernatural horror movies as "Poltergeist," "The Exorcist," "House on Haunted Hill," "What Lies Beneath" and "The Haunting," the story line largely comes across as an unfocused, satiric mishmash of hit or miss gags. It lacks the timing and precision of the original's scatterbrained humor, though its utter lack of subtlety should be expected rather than faulted.
The fact that a film like this works best as a series of riffs goes ignored by the filmmakers - they try to create a story explaining all the crazy things that go on in a mysterious old house when most of the information given is irrelevant and inconsistent, anyway. For example, the film's prologue involves a raunchy "Exorcist" spoof that seems terribly important but ends up having nothing to do with the events that follow.
Some of the performances are dead on and some of them are just dead. Both Wayans brothers, Shawn and Marlon, are consistently hilarious. The usually reliable Chris Elliott just doesn't cut it here because over half of his jokes and cheap sight gags fall flatter than a deflated whoopee cushion. It's almost painful to watch extended sequences in which absolutely nothing he does is funny. Thankfully, Tim Curry is right on the mark, as are the double team of Andy Richter and James Woods as priests. There's a barrage of fairly cool star cameos as well.
Sequels are generally objects to be dreaded and avoided at all costs. Bearing this in mind, "Scary Movie 2" really isn't that bad and it should satisfy the immature audience it seeks. If you're in the right mood, it will leave you with a big, dumb grin and an aching stomach from laughing too hard.
Enjoy at your own risk, but be warned: Check your brain at the door or it may be irreversibly damaged.
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