What’s funnier than graphic anal rape? Graphic anal rape by a ghost, of course! Now, let’s just suppose, for the sake of argument, you aren’t especially moved to laughter by watching a man, um, “raped” by a ghost. Suppose you’re one of those in the group I like to call, “the vast majority of humanity.” What do you then?
Welcome to A Haunted House. Would you like some farting to go with your flatulence jokes? How about some homophobia with a side of feces? There really is no end to the amount of asshole jokes assholes can make about extractions from or crammations into assholes. It’s OK because this is a comedy. Tell me this – how would you describe a person who finds both farting and ghostrape funny? Would you bring your child to that? I saw many, many children in my audience.
Kisha (Essence Atkins) begins the film by moving in with Malcolm (Marlon Wayans). As she pulls up in his driveway, she runs over his 
dog. Laughing yet? Yeah, me neither. Kisha brings a lot to the relationship, including baggage both literal and metaphorical. Excited by the prospect of an opening night sex pageant of some kind, Malcolm engages in foreplay with several stuffed animals only to discover Kisha emerged from the bathroom in mismatched sweats and a facial mask. The look is so off-putting, he has her pose for a picture while holding a cardboard sign saying, “will work for food.” This movie isn’t a complete disaster.
A Haunted House is a parody of the of the Paranormal Activity franchise. In each of the Paranormal films, a collection of video-centric white folks can’t seem to play nice with their in-house poltergeist. Franchise veterans will appreciate that the exact same house has been used here. We don’t ask how Malcolm can afford it – such comes off as racist, even though, let’s face it, Malcolm doesn’t seem to have a job or any recognizable skills. And he doesn’t get along with Kisha. None of that bothers me. This is the part that bothers me – Haunted follows the modern parody pattern, i.e. jokes are made to match scenes, not characters. Characters act according to motivation needed to make a scene happen, rather than following any logical pattern. The result is moments like Father Williams (Cedric the Entertainer) showing enhanced trepidation about possessed Kisha in one moment and taking a switch blade to play tic-tac-toe on her arm in the next. Difficult to enjoy character development jokes when there is no character development.
And it was painfully difficult to enjoy any bit of A Haunted House.
A parody with so little class
A demon dead set on “harass”
Matters not, what’s fair
When all you care
Is things coming out of your ass
Rated R, 86 Minutes
D: Michael Tiddes
W: Marlon Wayans, Rick Alvarez
Genre: Orifice humor
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Sexually aware six-year-olds
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Adults
