Paranormal Parody – A Haunted House

The theater had to turn away a lot of movie-goers for the January 10th preview screening of Marlon Wayan’s A Haunted House  Director Michael Tidesdue to over capacity.  So, a) hopefully that means the movie will do well at the box office this weekend and b) Tinsel & Tine did its part in giving away 100 screening passes.

I’ve said many times, I scare easily and can’t handle horror movies and now I really know it’s true, because I was a little freaked out watching this parody on the Paranormal Activity franchise. It’s not like the Scary Movie franchise, which The Wayans started, but haven’t been apart of since the second installment.  Those movies, are like mini-comedy skits, based on the horror genre.  A Haunted House begins like a romantic comedy Malcolm (Marlon Wayans) is excited about his girlfriend Kisha (Essence Atkins) moving in with him and wants to record on video all their first special moments together in the house.  Which mostly become moments of adjustment as Malcolm finds fault with Kisha for killing his dog, not cooking, wearing homeless style clothes to bed, not wanting sex, farting etc…

When Kisha starts noticing little things out of place in the morning and begins to worry they may be dealing with a ghost, they install cameras throughout Malcolm’s very spacious, rich, white neighborhood home. Malcolm’s profession is never discussed, there’s a lot of music equipment in the house, but neither of them ever seem to leave for work.

At any rate, once the paranormal part of the movie begins, the couples antics, reactions and the over the top hired help (including Cedric the Entertainer as a former inmate DIY Minister) have the audience cracking up!  Still for me, Kisha’s admission to having a demon following her since childhood and her ultimate possession is nearly as scary as the original Paranormal Activity.

This is Marlon’s first film without any of his brother’s on-board.  He felt at age 40 it was time to grow up and branch out on his own.  He’s also the executive producer of the new BET series Second Generation Wayans,
starring his nephews Craig Wayans and Damien Dante Wayans.

Marlon Wayans –  “I’m the type of guy where you don’t have to lie to my face—you can tell me straight-up if you hated the movie or not,” says Wayans. “I’ve told people that I want them to tweet me their opinion of the movie, and I’ll retweet them all, good or bad. So far, only two people haven’t liked it, so I’m ecstatic.”– READ MORE Matt Barone ComplexPoPculture.com

Here’s my over 140 character tweet to Wayans – @marlonlwayans #AHauntedHouse is a bad title, too generic, no black people are gonna call it this, why didn’t u just go with Paranormal Blacktivity? Ur writing is raunchy, juvenile, stupid, racial and ridiculous yet I LOL’d so much in spite of myself. This movie will find it’s core audience and they’ll be lovin 😀 the whole thing!


                     Here’s a group shot of attendees that got passes through Tinsel & Tine at UA Main Street 6

Believe it or not, my next screening is the the new horror film MAMA – won’t get a wink of sleep for a week.

Philly Film Blog