31 Days of Horror: Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

A Haunted House

Directed by Michael Tiddes.

2013. Rated R, 86 minutes.

Cast:

Marlon Wayans

Essence Atkins

Nick Swardson

Andrew Daly

Alanna Ubach

Cedric the Entertainer

Marlene Forte

David Koechner

Dave Sheridan

Affion Crockett

J.B. Smoove

Today is a big day. This is when Malcolm's (Wayans) girlfriend Kisha (Atkins) is moving in with him. He has a spacious house with a pool and a jacuzzi and a housekeeper named Rosa (Forte) to help him maintain it all. Of course, the second Kisha gets there, strange things start happening. It soon becomes apparent that there is a ghost in the house. And since this is a found footage movie, every oddity is caught on camera. Just so you don't go thinking this has any chance of being scary I'll let you know that this is a parody of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Therefore, comedy, or something like it, ensues.

The setup is familiar. Things happen, with the most extreme stuff occurring during the wee hours of the night. In the mornings, our loving couple watches the footage to see what went on for themselves. The difference between this and the movies it pokes fun of, plot wise, is that this is really all about sex. Nearly every joke overtly references some form of the act or another. This includes a rather extended scene of a threesome involving Malcolm and a pair of teddy bears. You might laugh yourself silly, become too uncomfortable to laugh, or both. Like much of the movie, it goes out of its way to be crass. A Haunted House also leans toward stereotypes and male homophobia (being completely okay with female homosexuality, naturally). Take it, or leave it.

Now that you know what to expect out of this movie, I can probably stop writing. However, I do want to touch on some of the highlights. For me, the biggest is Marlene Forte as Rosa. She is the one who made me laugh most consistently. She also takes what could be just a sliver of a character and forms a fully realized being. To be perfectly honest, it probably helps that we only get her in small doses. I'm judging by the plethora of supporting players who come to the house at some point. Most are at least a little funny for the first few minutes after they show up, but manage to wear out their welcome. Another positive is that whether you love it or hate it, it's not boring. The run time is thankfully short. On top of that it moves quickly because things are constantly happening that grab our attention.

While I wouldn't call A Haunted House good, I will say it wasn't nearly as painful as it could have been. It's better than another Wayans Brothers horror spoof, the Scary Movie franchise. Unlike those, it doesn't just re-enact random scenes from a bunch of movies appearing schizophrenic and pulling us in way too many directions. A Haunted House uses the template provided by Paranormal Activity, even to the point of imitation, but creates its own self-contained and cohesive narrative. You need not have seen twenty other films to get most of the jokes. Really, you don't even have to have seen Paranormal Activity. It stands up, or falls down depending on your tolerance for humor that might be beyond raunchy, on its own accord.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Anchorman 2: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Directed by Adam McKay.

2013. Rated PG-13, 119 minutes.

Cast:

Will Ferrell

Steve Carell

Christina Applegate

Paul Rudd

David Koechner

Meagan Good

James Marsden

Kristen Wiig

Dylan Baker

Fred Willard

Harrison Ford

When we first catch back up to Ron Burgundy (Ferrell), he's co-anchoring the evening news in New York City with his wife Veronica (Applegate) at the dawn of the 1980s. Together, they share a happy marriage which includes their son Walter (Nelson). However, things fall apart instantly when Ron is passed over for a promotion to anchor the nightly national news show in favor of his wife. Soon, he's living in San Francisco, alone, and miserable because he's out of the news game all together. His fortunes change when he's hired by GNN, the first 24 hour news network. Blues Brothers style, he gets the band back together and travels back to the Big Apple for their new gig. Once there, he finds himself not only in competition for viewers with his estranged wife, but also with his own network's prime-time guy Jack Lime (Marsden). This is especially daunting given his 2 AM time slot. Hijinks and shenanigans ensue.

Anchorman 2 bolts out of the starting gates. The first half of the movie is as funny as the original. Part of this is due to how effectively it builds steam during the setup phase. It takes advantage of our excitement for seeing the crew back together by re-introducing the characters in brilliant ways. The most fun re-introduction belongs to Brick Tamland (Carell) and involves his funeral. In fact, Brick is probably the most fun character in the entire film. Also fun is the ambiguous feelings for Ron that Champ Kind (Koechner) displays through his actions. There are also a number of jokes rehashed from the original. However, they work early on. It's remarkable given the fact if you've seen the first movie, you're pretty much guaranteed to remember how funny those bits were.

While the re-introductions of old characters, intros to the new ones, and the occasional rehashing of familiar bits carries the first act, our source of humor changes a bit for act two. We focus squarely on tying those early days of cable to the current state of news reporting. For those of us old enough to remember what it was like back when there were only three major networks and news only came on at six and eleven, this is a sharp satire and truncation of three and a half decades of news dissemination. For younger viewers, it is at least effective at reminding you what things were like before the age of Twitter. The movie also gets mileage out of Ron Burgundy trying to get to know his son, the competition between Burgundy and Jack Lime, and the dynamics of interracial relationships. It does that last thing by putting Burgundy together with Linda Jackson (Good), his boss who happens to be both female and black, two facts that gave Ron and the boys cause for pause. Admittedly, it never really does anything other than use it for an excuse for Burgundy to act like an imbecile. It tries to show the ignorance of stereotypes, but loses something because Ron never gets it.

All the steam we've coasted on for the first two thirds of the movie is lost when the third act starts. Simply put, the whole thing falls apart. The first thing is that all the loose strands come together quickly, but the movie keeps going as if they hadn't. Therefore, the climax is drawn out and unfunny. The effectiveness of re-using jokes from the first movie peters out because they go to the well one too many time. On that last trip, they also bring out way too large a bucket. Not content to merely copy what happened the first time around, the movie crams itself full of what seems like the most cameos in cinematic history. The problem is that the movie assumes that seeing these familiar faces is inherently funny rather than giving them something funny to do. It wants us to go "Ha ha, that's Will Smith, hahahahahaha." However, it only gives us enough material to say "Hey, that's Will Smith." See the difference?

The nosedive taken at the end of the movie makes Anchorman 2 a frustrating experience. We're enjoying ourselves for quite a while. Next thing you know, we're cringing at how bad things have gotten. It flipped from being slyly clever in a way that appears stupid to actually being stupid. Even the cast seems worn out by this time. Our main characters don't have much to do and seem to be going through the motions for what they do have. It's pretty apparent because, like the rest of the movie, they had so much life earlier. They become relegated to the sidelines while a bunch of celebrities hijack the end of the movie for no good reason, at all. Maybe the writers or director Adam McKay didn't know how to end it, or couldn't agree on it. In any event, they did not reach the right conclusion.

MY SCORE: 6.5/10

Hit & Run

Directed by Dax Shepard and David Palmer.

2012. Rated R, 100 minutes.

Cast:

Dax Shepard

Kristen Bell

Bradley Cooper

Tom Arnold

Joy Bryant

Kristin Chenoweth

Michael Rosenbaum

Beau Bridges

Ryan Hansen

David Koechner

Charlie Bronson (Shepard), not his real name, is living a quiet life in a small town with his girlfriend Annie (Bell). He doesn’t have much choice in lifestyle since he’s in witness program. Annie informs him she needs to go to Los Angeles really quickly for a lucrative job opportunity. After some arguing he reluctantly agrees. The only problem is that L.A. is where the people he’s hiding from live. If they find him, they will kill him. Thanks to Annie’s jealous ex Gil (Rosenbaum), they know he’s coming. And since Charlie didn’t get permission to make the trip, his buddy, and incompetent fed Randy (Arnold), is also in pursuit.

The elements are all in place for a fun action romp, but the pieces doen’t quite come together sufficiently. Writer/co-director/star Dax Shepard’s Charlie is an interesting character. He does his best to endow the character with empathetic qualities. At times it works, other times it doesn’t. The same goes for Kristen Bell’s Annie. She’s presented as a romantic, and somewhat naïve. He’s also a romantic and trying to protect her innocence. However, their arguments are more annoying than heart wrenching. This is even more problematic than normal because it’s all presented as a comedy. Though each person makes valid points, neither says anything funny.

Comedy is an issue throughout. There are moments of hilarity, but many of the jokes fall flat. This is especially the case with Tom Arnold’s character. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for slapstick involving guns, but his bungling with firearms quickly grows tiresome. Other officers of the law aren’t much brighter. Most of their dialogue revolves around a cell phone app for locating nearby (and horny) homosexuals. Again, a funny moment here and there, but largely just repetitive. The best joke, and we even get it twice, involves a hotel room full of naked seniors.

All of this leads us to Bradley Cooper in the bad guy role. Like everyone and everything else in the movie, he’s presented in a comedic tone but almost never makes us laugh. Therefore, we’re left to marvel at how evil he is. Yes, he’s a bad guy. Still, he doesn’t really set himself apart from other movie villains. Well, that’s not entirely true. His appearance is reminiscent of Gary Oldman’s in True Romance. In keeping with the look, he has a black girlfriend, Neve played by Joy Bryant. When we first meet him, he has a confrontation with a very large and angry black man. A physical altercation between the two, with Cooper coming out on top is expected and wouldn’t normally matter much except as a way to establish his badness. However, him dragging said black man along the ground by wrapping a chain around the dude’s neck and force-feeding him dog food is too far over the top, regardless of who he’s sleeping with. It also grates against the rest of the movie’s overt political correctness.

Hit & Run fares better in the action department. Much of the fun is had during the various chase scenes. They’re fun and create a palpable sense of danger. I would love to have seen much more of Charlie’s old suped up Lincoln than we do, but that’s really my only complaint in that department. Overall, these chases make the movie somewhat watchable. However, it is still very uneven. It’s never so terrible we have to turn it off. On the other hand, we wouldn’t be horribly upset if someone else did.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

Directed by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck.

2011. Rated R, 95 minutes.

Cast:

Jason Sudeikis

Tyler Labine

Leslie Bibb

Lake Bell

Michelle Borth

Nik Kroll

Angela Sarafyan

Don Johnson

Lindsay Sloane

Martin Starr

Rhys Coiro

Will Forte

David Koechner

Dee Dee Rescher

Eric (Sudeikis) is the de facto leader of a group of guys and girls who live together, during the summer at least, at a house his father owns. They have been close friends since high school. Occasionally, they throw hugely popular theme parties. In fact, we meet them during the “White Trash Bash.” The next day, daddy (a cameo by Don Johnson) shows up with his way younger girlfriend and informs his very grown boy that he’s putting the house on the market. His realtors are pushing hard to have the house sold very shortly, making the upcoming Labor Day the gang’s last chance to have a party like no other.

Thankfully, this isn’t a dance flick or a kiddie movie. Therefore, there is no mad dash by our heroes to raise enough money to save the place. Instead, they’re resigned to their fate and merely want to come up with a theme for the final blowout. Eventually, Eric and his sidekick Mike (Labine) decide it best to not invite any outsiders to their last shindig but still go out with a bang, quite literally. They want to have an orgy with their housemates. As you might imagine, this is a hard sell to people who’ve never engaged in such activities. Even if they agree to it, going through with it is something else entirely.

Despite a good deal of raunchy dialogue and situations, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy is only funny in a few spots. Only the no holds barred scene inside real life mattress store Fred’s Beds stands out as true comic gold. That’s in the unrated version, of course. I don’t know how much of what I saw made it into the theatrical version. Most of the rest of the humor is of ho-hum caliber. Still, it’s got an odd sweetness to it. I know it’s hard to imagine a movie about group sex having such a quality, but it is there. It’s not that we’re enthralled by any of the characters, but we do sorta like these folks. The director helps out by handling things about as delicately as possible while trying to live up to the title.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of flaws. These people we sorta like really are just types rather than rounded characters. This includes Tyler Labine doing his best Jack Black impersonation. The sidebar of a love story between Mike and Kelly (Bibb), the younger realtor, feels extraneous in its execution and rushed in its resolution. Ditto for the plotline involving the house itself. With all the pros and cons balancing it out, AGOFO manages to tread water. Occasionally, it musters enough strength to do a little better than that.