Hell House is a haunted place where there was an attempted exorcism on Megan (Natasha Lyonne). One year later, professor Oldman (Tim Curry) is using students Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris),Ray Wilkins (Shawn Wayans),Shorty Meeks (Marlon Wayans) and Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) to awaken Hell House. They are monitored by the professor and his assistant Dwight Hartman (David Cross). The house caretaker is Hanson (Chris Elliott). The other invited students include Buddy (Christopher Masterson) who pines for Cindy, Alex (Tori Spelling) and hot Theo (Kathleen Robertson).

The Exorcist spoof start isn't that funny with a couple of passable gross out jokes. The main spoof is The Haunting. It's great to have Anna Faris back. There is a constant flow of gross out jokes. They're not always particularly insightful or relevant to the horror genre. There are a few big laughs but it's mostly a lot of random jokes that don't work. Following a single movie spoof gives the movie a better and more consistent flow.

More mindless dross and movie entertainment that I wouldn't dream of spending money on, this quick sequel is very similar to the straightforward template from the first movie: a bunch of hopeless and clichéd characters go through movie cliché after movie cliché, whilst dozens of film references flash past all the while and a parade of ultra-gross humour attempts to make the viewer lose his or her lunch. Despite all of its attempts to be shocking – and the film laughs at race as well as the disabled – it's actually rather dull, despite frenzied mugging from the cast and a range of inventive special effects.

The humour here is more mean-spirited than before and even more gross, although many such jokes are simply copied from the original. Movie references include IT, CHARLIE'S ANGELS, THE MATRIX, POLTERGEIST, HANNIBAL, and many more, and are impossible to keep track of. There is plenty of stop motion in the movie which is pretty good for me, considering I enjoy such special effects. Because there are so many jokes (a couple a minute, at least),I did end up laughing at some of them, but most are pathetic. The major cast players are okay, with the exception of Anna Faris, who is dreadful here as before, but the likes of James Woods and Tim Curry have fun with their hamming, making this a slightly more enjoyable experience than the original. Not that this is saying much; this is still a mindless, moronic comedy for the teen crowd.

This is not as fun or as good as the first film, but while it is a very uneven film I do not think it is the worst of the series. That's the fourth. The film's weakness are mostly to do with the story and the pace. The story is very weak and thin a vast majority of the time, and the film feels rushed sometimes. While most of the references/spoofs are fun, some don't work, especially the forced and messy Titanic one. And there is some uneven performances, Marlon Wayans, David Cross and especially Chris Elliot come off best, but Anna Faris while better than she was in the first overdoes it and while Tim Curry was a welcome presence he doesn't have anything worthwhile to work with. However, the film thankfully doesn't look sloppy or straight to video quality and the music was quite good as well. Of course the film is silly and mindless, but most of it is very funny, the dinner scene with the running joke about the hand, the talking parrot and the Charlie's Angels spoof work especially well, and a lot of the script if bizarre and silly is hilarious. The highlight though is the Excorcist-beginning, with a very amusing cameo from James Woods. That scene alone made me think it would be a good movie, but while the rest of the film wasn't quite as good, it is entertaining enough and not as bad as some say. 6/10 Bethany Cox