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As a follow up to my recent review of Scary Movie, I figured I simply had to continue with this franchise and review the sequel – Scary Movie 2 which came out in 2001. As with the original, this movie isn’t really scary and it’s a tough stretch to call it a true horror movie. However it does have quite a few horror cliches in here and it parodies several horror classics including The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror and some not so classics such as Hollow Man.
The opening scene is probably the high point of the film as it’s a parody of The Exorcist. James Woods plays the priest sent to perform the exorcism and when he enters the room and sees the child with head spinning delivers the following perfect line: “Fuck this!” I’d originally seen this movie years ago and I remember dying laughing when I saw this and it goes me again all these years later.
Anna Faris reprises her role as lead character Cindy who’s now in college with a relatively similar cast from the previous film which includes at least 2 too many Wayans brothers. Cindy finds her way to a sleep study being held in a creepy mansion where a college professor (Tim Curry) is trying to bed the females. Hilarity and “horror” ensues as the kids try to escape the mansion which not only has a killer in it, but also a ghost of the house’s former owner.
This is the least successful of the Scary Movie franchise. At least to date. Remember Scary MoVie is set for release on April 13th, 2013. And I can see why. Even for a parody, the plot of this one is thin and I can only remember 1 death in the whole flick. If you’re not going to have a plot at least give us some good blood and gore! I suppose this was technically a box office success, grossing over $141 million with a budget of $45 million, but I’m actually kind of shocked that the series continued after this entry.
The best part of this was the comedy and there were a few “guest stars” that really stand out. As mentioned before, James Woods is hilarious as the priest. Andy Richter is a fellow priest who’s got a couple of good one liners, David Cross plays a wheelchair bound teaching aide who self-felates for a chuckle. Tim Curry is admirable in a leading role, Tori Spelling shows up and isn’t terrible, Natasha Lyonne of American Pie fame plays her part well, Richard Moll (Bull Shannon from Night Court) is the house ghost and my personal favorite is a SMOKING hot Kathleen Robertson (best known for playing Clare Arnold in Beverly Hills 90210).
Special dishonorable mention goes to Chris Elliott. I’ll be honest… I’ve got no tolerance for this guy as an actor and he gets so much screen time here that it’s grating. He’s playing a creepy bad guy here and the character is written to be kind of funny (I think). Unfortunately, Elliott’s over the top brand of gross out physical comedy is completely lost on me and I just tune out. He’s listed in the credits for Scary MoVie which really kind of bums me out.
All in all, I simply cannot recommend this movie. There are a couple of laughs in here but as a horror movie it falls completely flat. The original followed the plot of some really good horror movies but this one, sadly, does not. The 5th installment of the series will be the first to not have Anna Faris in the leading roll which is a bad thing, but also does not have any Wayans attached to it which is a good thing.
What do you think? Too harsh? Are you looking forward to the next installment of the Scary Movie franchise?
