A Haunted House Review

Movie: A Haunted House
By: Maniac E
Date: July 23, 2013

This Shit Ain't Paranormal!

Well I like my share of good comedy movies even they are spoofs. And well the Wayans brothers were on top of their game in the beginning with SNL (Saturday Night Live) and the first 2 Scary Movies. This time it is all up to Marlon Wayans to make our laughs scary with this one.

The story concerns a young couple, Malcolm and Keisha (Marlon Wayans and Essence Atkins), who optimistically move in together into a beautiful new suburban home. Malcolm decides that this unforgettable time in his life needs to be recorded prolifically, so everything we see in this film is recorded from Malcolm's personal camera. Soon, things become frighteningly paranormal as the young couple experiences loud, abrupt pangs in the middle of the night, haunting screams coming from who knows where, and the obligatory series of things falling from the ceiling and off the table for no apparent reason. When Malcolm learns that it's Keisha's presence that makes these paranormal activities occur, he decides to hire people like David Koechner, Cedric the Entertainer, and Nick Swardson (aka laugh devices to push the story over eighty minutes long) to try and exorcise the demons from their home.

Let's start with the fact we should laugh about a movie and straight of the bate this movie is using the run over dogs joke.. which to me isn't very funny at all. This time around they had some movies lined up to spoof like "Paranormal Activity, The Devil Inside, Insidious and Sinister'. Which would have enough stuff to work with if you as ask me to make a good spoof movie. In the end we only got fart and sex jokes all around and nothing really happened really with the source material. It is just feeling like a completely lazy product. No real thought went into making the movie and they are trying to make fun of Paranormal Activity but even that isn't working when they are trying to do the same thing over and over.

For me this is one of those movies that you should just leave at the store and never see it on Netflix. Yes, it is that bad! Spoof movies are being less and less nowadays, look at Epic Movie, Vampires Suck, etc. These movies aren't funny and shouldn't be making millions of dollars. If it isn't done right, don't reward them. For me it is crucial that a spoof movie is funny otherwise it completely missed the mark. In this case it missed all possible marks and is just juvenile piece of crap. It is a shame Wayans cannot produce to the top as they did 10 years ago.

In the end the only enjoyment what you will get from this movie is either not buying it, not seeing it or after you watched it used the disc as a coaster. I really cannot understand somebody gave this the thumbs up to produce. What is even worse... it cost 2 million to make and it ended up grossing around 40/45 million dollars... So people are actually giving money for this. To me this spoof movie shouldn't ever been made, go watch something good. Oh and brace yourselves part two will be coming soon....

BLURAY REVIEW

Image quality

Grainy grainy grainy! Color, contrast and skintones follow suit, although none of it seems off base, unnaturally saturated or all that distracting given the filmmakers' visual intentions. It's a fully functional presentation, flawed as the photography may be, and there aren't any serious issues of note; at least none that can be pinned squarely on the studio's efforts.

Sound

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is probably the highlight of this disc. But isn't enough to save the disc to be anything real good. The mix rarely abandons its found-footage sleight of hand, though, so don't come to A Haunted House expecting an overtly polished, precision crafted sonic experience. It wouldn't suit the film if it were.

Extras

none

Overall

Well this movie just hasn't have enough to offer. Because of the found footage techniques used the images really are grainy 80% of the time. And sound wise there isn't a lot to offer since there aren't any really big scares or things happening on the screen. Ah well maybe it is a must see for Wayan brother fans.

E1 Entertainment