Indulge me a metaphor. If cinema is sport then most genres, be they action, adventure, thriller, horror or romance, are some variety of the beautiful game: a careful build up from the back, fluid off-the ball movement, the odd languorous long ball into space, snappy interchanges in the middle of the park and clinical execution in the final third.
Comedy spoofs are different. They are more like rugby on a wet day. It’s about having a game plan, following it, and after that, tackling. Lots and lots of tackling. (“Tackles”, in this case, translate to gags)
Tackling requires full commitment and perfect timing. Go in half-heartedly and you’ll get hurt; make the hit early or late and someone else will, and you’ll be heading for an early shower.
In a comedy there’s no half-hour grace period in which the back four can elegantly stroke the ball around while scene is set and characters introduced: every man needs to be making good hard tackles from the first whistle. Those first critical collisions must all be on the money, or you’ll find yourself 15-0 down with a man in the sin-bin before the first quarter’s out.
That said, even as you take your seat and flip through the matchday programme, you fear for A Haunted House. Even in its game plan it has the look of a pup about it: it even features one, which meets a grisly end, in its opening sequences. Nor are early reports from the American broadsheets encouraging, though I hardly think they figured heavily when Marlon Wayans contemplated his target demographic. (Nor, should I think, did people like me, for that matter.) But it does seem to go over well-raked ground. A Haunted House is a horror-spoof – superficially like the Scary Movie franchise, thus begging the question why Marlon Wayans, with four of those exact movies in the tank and a fifth due to open imminently, isn’t leaving the genre well alone.
But look on the bright side: entering this sort of movie with low expectations is the best way to enjoy it. And so it proves.
Early doors the tackle count is certainly high and with Malcolm (Wayans) and Kisha (Essence Atkins) charging around the park like the undead possessed, you brace yourself for each one. Wayans hits each ruck with vigour, and with each contact we feel a flash of relief that the tackle has passed without injury. Before long you’ve passed the ten minute mark, and with the odd mis-hit, the game plan seems to be working out pretty well.
And so goes on. A ripple of laughter from one corner of the (hardly overstuffed) theatre grows into a general chuckle throughout. One chap on the left starts braying like a donkey. It is infectious. Soon enough we are all at it.
There is nothing original in the screenplay – it is scatologocal, features fart jokes and lots of innuendo – so put most of this down to the actors’ commitment and timing in the tackle. Wayans is a likeable, high octane presence and what his script lacks on lofty cerebral planes he makes up for in sheer effort: there are no half hearted shoulder charges here. Everyone commits full bloodedly, and you fancy one or two jokes which might have led to a turnover or even a yellow card in less enthusiastic hands (an extended one-man orgy with cuddly toys, for example) carry through on sheer bravura and timing alone.
The screenplay is uneven, but the script is lively throughout, and there are droll comedy turns from David Koechner as a security expert, Nick Swardson as a gay psychic, Alanna Ubach and Andrew Daly as a couple of would-be swingers and Cedric the Entertainer as an ex-con turned exorcist. The whole thing looks like it was (and apparently was) shot on steadycams on a shoe string.
I dare say the box office takings, already at something like fifteen times production costs before its UK release, will help Marlon Wayans come to terms with a sniffy review in the New York Times.
A Haunted House is in cinemas 19th June 2013.
Director: Michael Tiddes
Stars: Marlon Wayans, Essence Atkins, David Koechner, Nick Swardson, Cedric the Entertainer, Alanna Ubach, Andrew Daly
Running Time: 86m
Country: USA
Film Rating: 
