In the first A Haunted House film, Malcolm (Marlon Wayans) was literally forced to face his demons, and perform an exorcism on his girlfriend Kisha (Essence Atkins). It has been a year since those events and he is now with new girlfriend Megan (Jaime Pressly). Shortly after the couple moves into their new home, along with Megan’s two children, Malcolm finds himself in a familiar situation, with bizarre paranormal events constantly occuring. Malcolm soon discovers that the house is inhabited by a demon that is out to get him and his new family, and so he seeks assistance from Professor Wilde (Rick Overton).
Meanwhile, Malcolm tries to connect with teenager Becky (Ashley Rickards), but she is obsessed with a strange old box she found in the basement; and her younger brother Wyatt (Steele Stebbins) is also behaving strangely, always hanging out with his invisible best friend. When things start really getting out of hand, Malcolm calls in the help of neighbor Miguel (Gabriel Iglesias), exorcist couple Noreen (Missi Pyle) and Ned (Hayes MacArthur), and old friends Father Williams (Cedric the Entertainer) and cousin Ray Ray (Affion Crockett).
This sequel follows pretty much the same exact same formula as the original movie—Malcolm moves into a new house with his girlfriend, sets up cameras everywhere, when the craziness starts happening no one believes him until he finally has to gather a group of misfits to perform an exorcism, and throughout all of this there is a lot of crude humor.
Unfortunately this means that all the same issues I had with the first film are once again present here. The film starts off great, but the story quickly falls apart and the film just becomes a series of disparate vignettes. The humor devolves quickly into a never-ending series of fart, sex and racial stereotype jokes. All of the scenes involving Gabriel Iglesias just serve to reinforce black and Mexican stereotypes. Like the first film, the N-word is used constantly throughout. And once again there’s a shot of Malcolm defecating on-screen.
However, not all was bad, and I did find a lot of humor to enjoy in A Haunted House 2. There is this hilarious on-going Fatal Attraction storyline involving Malcolm and the wooden doll Abigail he has sex with, and an extended fight sequence between Malcolm and a chicken that rivals even Family Guy. Marlon Wayans’ performance is really the saving grace of this film—he gives a hilarious, over-the-top performance and no matter how ridiculous the situation, he goes for it, giving 150%! There are several scenes with him riffing to inanimate objects that had me laughing out loud.
As for the parody aspect of the film, I have not seen a lot of the horror films that are referenced, so I can’t speak to how successful this movie is in that regard. It is only through the audio commentary track that I learned that The Conjuring, Sinister and The Possession are some of the films that are parodied.
The picture and sound quality of the Blu-ray is excellent. Every detail of the video is crisp and clear, and the soundtrack utilizes all of the audio channels to add to the atmosphere and suspense. The disc also includes some great bonus material—almost 18 minutes of deleted/extended scenes, and a feature-length audio commentary. While this is a somewhat meager amount of extras when compared to other Blu-ray releases, it is a huge improvement over the Blu-ray release of the first film (which just contained a 2-minute promo for the film), and the material that is included is really entertaining. Both Ultraviolet and Digital Copy versions of the film are included in the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:26:48)
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Blu-ray:
- 1080p / Widescreen 1.85:1
- Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
- 480p / Widescreen 1.85:1
- Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
- UltraViolet DigitalHD Copy redeemable via Universal, Flixster, Vudu or Target Ticket
- Digital Copy redeemable via iTunes or Windows Media
DVD:
Digital Copy (For redemption deadline see NBCUcodes.com):
Extras:
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (17:54)
A collection of over a dozen deleted and/or extended sequences, some with the special effects only partially completed. There is some really fun stuff here—some hilarious scenes involving Marlon Wayans completely over-reacting to the situation at hand, some scenes with Jaime Pressly interacting with a ghost, some exorcised exorcism craziness and some alternate versions of Malcolm’s interactions with the Professor. I’m surprised some of this material didn’t make it into the film as the final cut was under 90 minutes long. - Feature Commentary (1:26:48)
Actor/co-writer/producer Marlon Wayans, director Michael Tiddes, and co-writer/producer Rick Alvarez provide a fun commentary throughout the film, giving some interesting (and sometimes completely untrue) behind-the-scenes tidbits. They also mention the various movie references the film makes. I really enjoyed re-watching the film along with this commentary. - Previews (5:07)
Play All or select from trailers for A Haunted House, Sabotage, Machete Kills, Hit & Run, Silent Hill: Revelation and Silent House.
Final Thoughts:
A Haunted House 2 follows the same formula and style of humor of the first film. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, and also includes a small but entertaining pair of bonus features—18 minutes of deleted/extended scenes and a fun feature-length audio commentary. While there were several scenes I found hilarious, there was also a lot of stuff that I found too rude and crude for my taste. However, those who really enjoyed the original film should not be disappointed with the sequel as it is just more of the same. For those unfamiliar with the franchise, I would recommend a rental first.
