Scary Movie 2

Details

A year after the events of the first film, Cindy Campbell and the other survivors have left school behind and are now at college trying to put their rather unfortunate experiences behind them. As part of a class project, Professor Oldman recruits Cindy, Brenda, Ray and Shorty, along with fellow students Theo, Alex and Buddy, to spend a weekend studying sleep disorders at the decidedly creepy Hell House.

What the students don't know is that the sleep study is merely a cover for Oldman's real experiment. Hell House has a particularly unpleasant history and was previously the scene of a disastrous exorcism involving a possessed young girl, two priests and rather more bodily fluids than any respectable religious ceremony would normally require.

Assisted by wheelchair-bound Dwight Hartman, Oldman hopes to prove the existence of paranormal activity inside the house. It doesn't take long before the students begin encountering its ghostly inhabitants, whilst the increasingly peculiar caretaker Hanson does little to make anyone feel more comfortable about spending the night.

With doors slamming, skeletons appearing, possessions taking place and just about every horror-film cliché being dragged out for another beating, Cindy and her friends once again find themselves trying to survive long enough to work out exactly what's happening inside the house.

Picture & Sound

You can instantly tell that the sequel had a bigger budget than the first instalment from the quality of the picture. It's bright and colourful throughout, with rich flesh tones, plenty of detail and no obvious signs of artifacting, outlining or significant picture imperfections. Given the number of dark interiors, smoke effects and deliberately gloomy sequences, the transfer handles the material extremely well.

Unlike the first film, the rear channels have been employed far more extensively for ambient and general effects. Doors slam, ghosts make their presence felt and the numerous supernatural goings-on frequently extend into the surrounds. Dialogue remains crisp and clear in the centre channel and there's never any need to keep adjusting the volume, even during the noisier visits from the house's ghostly residents. Again, it seems to be a case of bigger budget, better audio.

Menu & Extras

The extras are vastly improved over the first film and the DVD technology has been embraced rather more enthusiastically, not least by a particularly obnoxious parrot who seems determined to insult you whilst navigating the disc. The menus are nicely animated and scored, although be prepared for plenty of abuse as the feathered menace squawks his way through the extras menu.

The Deleted and Alternate Scenes run for over thirty minutes and provide the most substantial addition, whilst the various making-of featurettes cover the production, makeup and special effects. There's also a still gallery, DVD-ROM material and the bizarre Word from the Perch. Taken together, it's a considerably stronger collection of extras than appeared on the original film's DVD.

As with the first Scary Movie disc, this Region 1 release is also encoded for Region 4 playback. I'm not aware of many other DVDs being encoded in this manner, apart from the more familiar Region 2 and Region 4 combinations, so Australian DVD owners may be in for a good time once again.

Overall

The first Scary Movie gleefully tore apart Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, but having exhausted much of the slasher material the Wayans brothers have turned their attention towards haunted-house movies. The main targets this time include The Exorcist, The Haunting and What Lies Beneath, although there are also digs at Hollow Man, Hannibal, Charlie's Angels and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon amongst many others.

Unfortunately, it's nowhere near as funny as the first film. That had a recognisable storyline underneath all the madness, whereas this sequel frequently feels like a collection of individual sketches loosely connected by the fact that everybody happens to be trapped inside the same house. Some jokes are hilarious, others fall completely flat and the whole thing eventually seems to run out of ideas rather than reach anything resembling a proper conclusion.

Still, when the jokes work they can be extremely funny. The opening Exorcist parody with James Woods sets the tasteless tone immediately, whilst Chris Elliott's horribly deformed Hanson provides some of the film's most disgusting - and consequently funniest - moments. Anna Faris and Regina Hall once again throw themselves into the stupidity with admirable enthusiasm, while Tim Curry is exactly the sort of actor you want wandering around a mysterious haunted house.

The film also benefits enormously from its short running time. At just over eighty minutes there's little opportunity to become genuinely bored and, whenever a joke misses the target, another one usually arrives before you've had much chance to complain. As with the original, subtlety isn't merely absent - it's probably been murdered somewhere off screen.

If you're a fan of the laughing-and-finger-poking genre of films then you'll probably enjoy this one. The plot is virtually non-existent and at times it resembles a collection of sketches that would be more at home on Saturday Night Live, but it's short, frequently funny and never takes itself remotely seriously.

It's certainly not the comedy classic that the first film was, but there's still enough here to keep you chuckling and the vastly improved collection of extras gives the DVD some additional value. Worth watching if you enjoyed the original, but this time I'd probably recommend renting before buying.

Special features

• Behind the Scenes Featurette
• Deleted and Alternate Scenes
• Special Effects Tour
• Behind the Makeup
• Word from the Perch
• Still Gallery
• DVD-ROM Enhanced