"Scary Movie 2" stabs the funny bone

The Wayans brothers should forget about making TV shows. I think the WB and UPN should realize they aren't going to turn out another "In Living Color." But if Keenan, Marlon and Shawn could make a TV show as funny as "Scary Movie 2," we'd have something decent to watch on the second-rate networks besides "Blind Date."\nThe original "Scary Movie" was a somewhat funny but overall mediocre spoof of slasher movies like the "Scream" trilogy, "Urban Legend" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer." "Scary Movie 2" takes a stab at supernatural, ghost-type movies like "What Lies Beneath," "The Exorcist," and the haunted house movies. Scarier Movie completely out scares the original installment. Keenan stacks "SM2" with an all-star comedic cast, adding Chris Elliott ("Saturday Night Live," "Get a Life"), Christopher Masterson (Francis from "Malcolm in the Middle"), Tim Curry, James Woods, Andy Richter, Tori Spelling and David Cross ("Mr. Show with Bob and Dave"). The previous cast, minus Bobby Prinze, returns for a crew that couldn't turn out a bad product even if it were a Wayans brother TV show.\nIn the film, the returning stars are brought to a haunted house for a "sleep deprivation experiment." But they are really brought to the house to try and conjure up old spirits so a doctor can prove there is life after death. They are successful in bringing back the ghosts, and spend the next couple days fighting for their lives. With a movie like "SM2," the plot is never more complicated than this.\nFor the first 15 minutes of "SM2," I could not stop laughing. The sequel took what was really funny from the first movie and loaded "SM2" with it. They added some better and funnier spoofs, an awesome cast -- it's quick-witted, disgusting, mean humor audiences will love. With spoofs from "Titanic" to "M:I 2," "SM2" stalks just about any movie for good parody material.\nMost critics rip on parodies for a bad plot with bad acting. Spoofs can't be judged on these points, since the idea of the movie is to make people laugh by making fun of people, events, movies and music. Bad parodies aren't terrible because of acting, it's because the jokes and spoofs aren't really funny. Despite the plot and acting, SM2 succeeds in its satire, and is probably the best parody movie since the "Naked Gun" series.