SCARY MOVIE 2 []
More gross. More stupid. More tedious. Running time: 82 minutes. Rated R (very vulgar and sexual humor, profanity, drugs). At the Empire, the Chelsea, the Cinema 1, others.
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THE ads for “Scary Movie” promised “no sequel” – and the inevitable “Scary Movie 2” (the original grossed $155 million) is so desperately unfunny that you wish someone would sue for false advertising.
Seven writers, including three Wayans brothers, are credited with an exceedingly feeble and boring series of skits that reference (but don’t really parody or satirize) supernatural-themed movies, all of which barely cover an hour’s worth of screen time.
To pad things out, there’s an unrelated pre-credits sequence that mocks “The Exorcist,” and stars James Woods in the cameo that was supposed to be played by Marlon Brando.
It’s not hard to imagine that Brando took sick at the thought of the vulgar and noisy toilet scene he was to have played as a priest.
Or perhaps it was witnessing the projectile-vomiting contest between a second priest (Andy Richter) and a 15-year-old girl (Natasha Lyonne), who empties her bladder at length on the carpet.
And that’s the movie’s comic high point.
Things go rapidly downhill from there into the story proper, about a horny psych professor (Tim Curry) who lures six students into a haunted house for an experiment he hopes will get him into the coeds’ pants.
There are passes at “The Haunting,” “The House on Haunted Hill” and “Poltergeist,” as well as a clumsy homage to “Charlie’s Angels,” but director Keenan Ivory Wayans is no Mel Brooks.
He telegraphs the jokes, times them poorly and gets extremely weak performances from the cast, including his brothers Shawn and Marlon who return, respectively, as a pothead and a sexually confused jock.
The exception is Chris Elliott, as a creepy butler with a Southern accent and a mangled bloody limb that he uses to prepare a feast for the disgusted guests – a scene that goes on for what seems like hours after it ceases to be funny.
One of the students (David Cross), who is wheelchair-bound, demonstrates he doesn’t need a woman’s help with oral sex; a statuesque coed (Tori Spelling) has sex with a ghost; the sexually confused brother gets it on with a clown doll and the pothead gets smoked by a giant marijuana plant.
The film’s big gross-out moment is a parody of the drowning scene in “Titanic,” embellished by manual manipulation and buckets of bodily fluid.
Much less funny than its predecessor, “Scary Movie 2” looks like a shoddy, direct-to-video sequel designed to separate unwary consumers from their money.
