As it turns out, you can’t kill your problems in a car wreck, even if your problem is a possessed woman. Malcolm moves into his new house and the problems immediately start. There’s a creepy doll, a box that drives Becky insane, a vodka-swilling imaginary friend that teaches Wyatt to curse… you pick the horror movie trope, and it shows up at some point, right down to Malcolm’s obsession with cameras and home security. As it turns out, once Agouhl (Dave Sheridan) has his eyes on you and your family, getting rid of him is not that easy. Marlon Wayans is from a famous family of funny people, but clearly he needs some oversight from Damon and Keenan Ivory in order to make the most of his particular brand of energy. Wayans doesn’t so much as tell a joke as he does scream it. If there’s a chance to flop around on the floor, he’ll take it. If there’s a chance to pull a stupid face, he’ll do it. If there’s a chance to flop around on the floor and pull a stupid face while screaming and wailing, then you’d better believe he won’t let that opportunity pass him by. You can’t argue with his commitment to attempted comedy, or his ability to really throw himself around, but the mugging reeks of desperation, as if he knew he didn’t have any actual funny ideas and assumed the only way he could get laughs is by pretending to hump a creepy doll. At least the rest of the cast doesn’t join him in his wailing and roiling, not that it provides much respite from all the noise. You would think that all the opportunities to play with horror set pieces would give director Michael Tiddes an opportunity to show off a little visual flash, but that doesn’t really happen here. Indeed, it’s a very flat movie. Even once they drop the found footage conceit – though some character or another carries a camera pretty much all the time – it doesn’t give the movie any dynamics. It’s just kind of clumsy, like everything else. There’s nothing original in A Haunted House 2. The stolen tropes and horror elements are poorly executed, both on the page and on the screen. There’s no sense of pace, no plot to speak of, and absolutely nothing redeeming about this waste of energy, time, and money. I have no doubt it will turn a profit since the last one somehow made $60 million on an investment of $2.5 million, but just because the movie makes money, that doesn’t mean it needs to actually be made. US Correspondent Ron Hogan can only hope that Marlon Wayans and company will take the money and run, rather than coming back for yet another trip into the haunted house. Fingers crossed! Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi.
