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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

A Haunted House

A HAUNTED HOUSE (Michael Tiddes). 88 minutes. Opens Friday (January 25). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: N


The end credits for A Haunted House are more compelling than anything in this paper-thin spoof of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Dozens of names scroll by, all people who presumably put an effort into making this pointless parody. And yet the result looks and feels like it was shot by a porn crew on a quiet weekend.

Producer/co-writer Marlon Wayans (the shriekier and more insecure Wayans of White Chicks, Littleman and the first two Scary Movie movies) and Essence Atkins play a couple who experience – and videotape – an oddly familiar series of paranormal disturbances in their home. This being the parody version, it’s about 10 minutes before the first fart gag, and another five before the gay jokes start coming fast and furious.

Much like Wayans’s Scary Movie scripts, A Haunted House doesn’t actually engage with the films it spoofs it just has the cast re-enact entire scenes from them with high-pitched voices. Wayans mugs, Nick Swardson and David Koechner pop up to be creepy and inconsiderate respectively, and Atkins… well, she’s a very good sport, recreating bits from The Devil Inside, The Last Exorcism, The Haunting In Connecticut and even The Exorcist in rapid succession.

It doesn’t make the movie any good, but it certainly shows her range.

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