Madea is like the Jay and Silent Bob of Tyler Perry movies. She is in his regular movies for comic relief, and then she has her own movies like this one where she is the main character, and these movies are the "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" of the Tyler Perry universe. If you like Madea, you'll probably like these movies, and if you think Madea is annoying, you probably won't like these movies, so plan accordingly when you're deciding to watch these movies. I think Madea is funny, so I tend to like these movies, but this one got bad reviews even by Madea movie standards, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about this one. Here's hoping I enjoy it!
In this movie, Madea finds herself at the mercy of ghosts and ghouls when she breaks up a Halloween party at a frat house. Madea is her usual mouthy self in this movie, snarky and wisecracking her way through life. It's Halloween, so you get your regular Madea humor along with some added ghoulies and ghosties and tricks and treats.
I usually like Madea, but she seems different in this movie. She's phoning it in here and she doesn't have any of her usual charm for me here. Usually the formula for her movies is there are a lot of laughs, then in the last ten minutes or so of the movie things will get serious and there will be a message at the end about family and love and something along those lines. in this movie the funny stuff feels forced though, at least to me. I'm used to Madea delivering effortless monologues where she'll get more ridiculous as she goes on until they're full on hilarious in the end, but here her speech is choppy like she forgot what she was saying. I've never seen that in her movies before, so I was disappointed.
About 3/4 of the way through this movie, when they get into the car and drive to the church, things smooth out a bit and the movie seems to find its footing. That's when things get funnier and scarier. The characters make some boneheaded moves that characters in horror movies typically do. I thought Madea was smarter than that. I didn't know the churches had services on Halloween, though I guess it makes sense if they think Halloween is evil to have a service to counter the evil. I could never go to a church that believed Halloween was evil. my church is going to be live streaming a service this Halloween, but they're celebrating Halloween, not condemning it. Tyler Perry inserts himself into this movie, playing the dad of a teenage daughter, and they finally do have a conversation at the end of the movie, which is what I was waiting for the whole movie, and I'm glad they finally got to the point, and Madea gets to shine and be her usual preachy self when she talks some sense into the unruly teenager. It's too bad the movie waits until the last fifteen minutes to get good, but it's not bad, and I'm glad I held out until the end. overall, I think this movie was worth watching for Madea fans, but everyone else might want to stay clear.
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