Director: Michael Tiddes
Talent: Cedric the Entertainer, Marlon Wayans, Essence Atkins
Release: 21st June 2013
Malcolm (Marlon Wayans) is a fun-loving record producer living large, playing by his own rules and generally loving life in his mansion. When his long-time girlfriend, Kisha (Essence Atkins), moves in with him Malcolm’s man-child lifestyle is threatened, not just by the demands of his girlfriend but by unseen demonic forces bent on destruction. A Haunted House is the latest film in what Baby Way Productions would have you believe is a series of parodies. A Haunted House is not a parody; failing to imitate its serious-minded contemporaries in an assured manner while simultaneously falling short of raising so much as a chuckle from the audience.
This film runs the same gamut of tired jokes and situations seen time and time again in the Wayans Brothers’ previous parodies. No depth is left unplumbed: casual racism, homophobia, major religions, scatology, reality television, etc. All of these subjects are treated with the same irreverent snarky tone; subtlety is certainly not the film’s strongest suit. As Malcolm and Kisha stumble their way through a veritable plethora of lousy jokes, obvious setups and lacklustre pay-offs, one can’t help but feel that A Haunted House takes its comedy as seriously as it takes the material it’s riffing on.
One element that is paramount to both horror and comedy films is suspense: in A Haunted House there is no suspense, only nut-shots and “kerrazay” situations. Clearly, the filmmakers are of the belief that if you say something offensive or stupid over and over again eventually someone will laugh, and perhaps that’s a good overview for the Wayans Brothers’ parodies as a whole. Unfortunately for them (and us) no matter how often they try, no matter how big or stupid the film, the audience experience feelings of annoyance rather than those of amusement.
