UNCLE DON’S VIEWS OF NIL REPUTE

Tackier than fly paper, more tasteless than light beer, populated with

“O Brother Where Art Thou” rejects, “Scary Movie 2” arrives as the

welcome cinematic antithesis to “A.I.” What, me? Think? Not for the 90 or

so minutes that this flick appears on the silver screen.

Some of you viewed part one a year or so ago. I feel for you. “Scary

Movie,” for those of you intellectually and emotionally advanced enough

to have skipped it, was a lame series of parodies of horror films. Part

two aims for the gutter and manages to hit the sewer.

From the opening “Exorcist” parody, where the priests get in a barfing

contest with the possessed little girl, to some awful stop-motion

animation that even Ray Harryhausen would have been embarrassed to put up

on the screen, well, to paraphrase an old Booker T. Jones line, if it

wasn’t for bad taste, this flick wouldn’t have any taste at all.

The Wayans brothers (of “In Living Color” fame) write, direct and

flatulate their way through a film that in no way should be seen by kids.

I couldn’t believe all the 10-year-olds watching. How are their parents

gonna explain happenings on screen that usually only appear on sticky

tapes secreted behind beaded curtains at some place that Pee Wee Herman

might visit.

There is a plot, kind of. A professor, in tweeds and turtlenecks,

along with his geeky research assistant, whose teeth are more crooked

than a cornfield plowed by a drunk, have put together the Hell House

Project.

They want to see if they can awaken the spirits of hell, therefore

documenting evidence of life after death. Idiots, they could have asked

Shirley MacLaine and saved themselves a lot of time and money. But then,

the movie would be over in 10 minutes.

They’re gonna get this evidence by luring the usual assortment of

brain-dead college students up to the usual scary abandoned house and, as

usual, lock them in for the weekend.

First one up to the house is our protagonist, Cindy, who is followed

by the expected grouping of Larrys, Curlies, and Moes. Greeted by a

butler -- decrepit as a ’63 Rambler, listing like the Andrea Doria, more

deformed than Silly Putty in a first-grader’s hands -- these airheads are

doomed, but not quite yet. Nope we’ve got time and students to kill.

There are mysterious sounds, bloody footprints, secret rooms, hidden

diaries, vacuous apparitions and the obligatory evil poltergeist. This

gaggle of actors and actresses is so incredibly clueless that one wonders

why they aren’t all blond.

You’ve got a cat that has seen too many “Rocky” films, a couple of

goofballs who actually got inspiration from “Dude, Where’s my Car,” and a

whole flock of yahoos who have watched “Dirty Harry” and “Ghostbusters”

way too many times.

While trying to be an “Airplane”-type parody for the morally decrepit

and emotionally crippled, “Scary Movie 2” for the most part succeeds

“stoopidendously.” Not since “Groove Tube,” have I seen some bad taste

done in such grand style.

The Wayans don’t miss much. What they do miss, they manage to splatter

on and, in one classic scene, manage to interpolate “The Matrix” with

“The Wizard of Oz” with “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Speaking of “Crouching Tiger . . .,” that was and is the most moronic,

low brow, half-witted film ever to sneak its way onto the silver screen

since “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” What is it about foreign films from any

continent that make the so-called legitimate reviewers even softer in the

head? Gimmie Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris or Jean Claude Van Damme any time,

all the time.

In its festering cornucopia of bad taste, “Scary Movie 2” overflows,

overreaches and overruns. Righteous.

* UNCLE DON reviews b-movies and cheesy musical acts for the Daily

Pilot. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]