The Wayans Brothers promised with last summer's Scary Movie that there would be no sequel ... but the almighty dollar spoke and the studio jumped. So here we have a rushed follow-up to an already very weak original. And this time they didn't bother even trying to be funny. After a rather hilarious opening pastiche of The Exorcist, this installment settles in as a haunted house thriller with a group of students trapped in a creepy mansion by a sinister scientist (Curry). Along the way the filmmakers try (and fail) to lampoon such lame targets as The Haunting, Hannibal and What Lies Beneath, with sideways nods to the likes of Titanic, The Sixth Sense (again!) and Charlie's Angels.

More than a spoof of thrillers, this is really just another gross-out teen comedy, centring on vomit and semen gags. It's just terrible, with long stretches in which the sea of writers don't even try to insert any humour, followed by an attempted joke that doesn't work on any level. Most scenes are utterly inexplicable, with broad Airplane-style humour that never hits its mark. Every funny moment is in the opening five minutes in which a priest (Woods) tries to exorcise a possessed little girl (Lyonne). Yes, even here the script opts for the obvious and crude every time it threatens to do something intelligent, but at least it's funny. The remaining film is perhaps the most shameless waste of celluloid in history.

very strong adult themes, innuendo, imagery, language

3.Sep.01

lukeclemens, net: "For me its the best scary movie. Crude and silly jokes and humour all the way through. The caretaker and the guy in the wheelchair are two great characters." (10.Apr.06)