(On DVD, October 2002) The first Scary Movie film was a genuinely amusing satire marred by gratuitous gross-out gags. This one is a poor attempt at a comedy marred by even more gratuitous gross-out gags. It’s not that you’re not grinning (to be fair, the sequences referring to The Exorcist, Mission: Impossible 2 and Charlie’s Angels are worth a discount rental alone if you’re a fan of the original films), it’s that you feel quite guilty for doing so. And whereas the prequel’s gross-out gags had some amusing value, the ones in here are simply mystifying: did someone truly believe, at any moment during the production, that these would be funny? Particularly annoying is Chris Elliot’s character, whose antics are simply perplexing. The rest of the cast is so-so, with Anna Faris doing her best to be as bland as possible and Tim Curry shamelessly collecting a pay-check. (James Woods, however, is as good as usual in his quasi-cameo.) Big fans of satiric comedies might enjoy (“Let’s fight Mad Cow style! Moo! Mutherf…”), but I’d recommend Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th… well before this one. The DVD contains some forty-odd minutes of deleted and alternate scenes, and it’s telling that they are roughly of the same quality than the rest of the film.
(Second Viewing, On Cable TV, October 2021) Of all the Scary Movie entries in my pre-Halloween series marathon, Scary Movie 2 was the one I was least looking forward to—I recalled it as a dumb, unfunny, laborious watch. The film’s rushed production history explains a lot: Spurred by the surprise success of the first film, Miramax set up its sequel to be in theatres exactly one year after the debut of its predecessor. In other words, the entire thing has to be written, produced, shot and post-produced in a matter of months—a risky pace even for skilled professionals, and a downright hopeless one for a spoof comedy with extensive writing and post-production work. The result, though, is not as bad as I feared—tasteless and humourless in spots, sure, but with more effective jokes than I remembered as well. It certainly helps to go in with low aspirations and a few alarm signals: Whenever I saw Chris Elliot’s character walk on screen, for instance, I knew that the next moments would be unbearable. I still like the premise of the story, but, of course, I’m a gigantic fan of any “people spend the night in a haunted house” plot. Perhaps the best comic moments occur whenever the film stops with the gross-outs, remembers that there’s more to a spoof than re-creation, and goes for the unexpected. The film’s biggest chuckles (calling them laughs would go too far) take place when the characters get the best out of their supernatural aggressors. It somewhat compensates for the ludicrous amount of physical violence directed at Anna Faris throughout the film. She’s game for everything, but I still prefer Regina Hall’s comic timing. (Perhaps the most timeless pieces of comedy in the first two Scary Movies come from the Wayan Brothers going for acerbic racial commentary which, regrettably, hasn’t dated all that much.) Still, trying to find nice things to say about better-than-remembered Scary Movie 2 is tough: It doesn’t waste James Woods, but it mishandles Tim Curry, suffers from some terribly unfunny sequences, doesn’t manage to get any charm out of substandard special effects, and constantly demonstrates how it was rushed from conception to delivery. The result is better than expected, but still rather dismal—Ironically, the film would be much better if it was shorter: Get rid of Elliot, most of David Cross’ character, much of the overlong joke-milking (especially when it’s not funny to begin with) and you’d end up with a relatively funnier film, albeit one that wouldn’t qualify for feature-length status. Still, that could be interesting. At least new next few Scary Movie entries in my marathon represent, if I recall correctly, a step up.
