'SCARY' SEQUEL A CREATIVE EXORCISE.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

Last year, the scariest thing about ``Scary Movie'' was how its popularity was directly inverse to critical reaction. Despite reviews that were particularly hateful in a unnaturally hate-worthy year, the film naturally proceeded to rake in - ``gross'' is just too obvious a word in this case - some $260 million worldwide.

Critics and other humans will likewise be polarized by ``Scary Movie 2'' (suggested subtitle: ``More of the same''), but here are some salient details: Despite the fact that much was made about the first film being the most successful ever directed by an African-American (Keenen Ivory Wayans), ``Scary 2'' adds no new black or ethnic characters (although three of the four returning characters are black), just a bunch of new dumb white folks. The film is significantly less, um, naughty than the first one - only one gag seems to test the boundaries of its R rating. And whatever the ``Cast Away'' gag was (promised in the print ad's logo), it didn't survive the final cut of the movie, which prompts the question: Was it really less funny than some of the jokes that still remain?

Many felt the first ``Scary Movie'' peaked in the first 10 minutes, and so it goes here, with a deliriously tasteless parody of ``The Exorcist,'' complete with a possession victim (Natasha Lyonne) with a bladder the size of the Hindenberg, a very randy priest (an eager-to-offend James Woods) and a vomiting sequence that probably accounted for a full day's worth of craft-service preparation on the set and will likely render all future vomiting sequences in movies futile. Of course, the film's seven writers (including its two stars, Shawn and Marlon Wayons; this accounts for one more writer than the original needed, though at 80 minutes - about 11 minutes per scribe - it's actually five minutes shorter) have had more than an entire quarter-century to fine-tune this particular sequence.

When it comes time to mock more recent films, therefore, it's all pretty much downhill. The nominal plot borrows heavily from the virtually unseen ``The House on Haunted Hill.'' A malevolent professor (Tim Curry) and his wheelchair-using assistant (David Cross, sporting the worst comb-over this side of ``Kingpin'') enjoin an unsuspecting group of college students to spend a night in a haunted house for - well, I'm sure there was a compelling reason included in some draft of the screenplay. Among those participating are four characters from the original film: chronically chronic-loving Shorty (Marlon Wayans), omni-sexual Ray (Shawn Wayans), all- purpose sassy Brenda (Regina Hall) and the sweet, virtuous and apparently terribly dim Cindy (the amazingly game Anna Faris).

Others along for the paycheck: Tori Spelling, playing a fatally attracted woman who stalks even the dead; Kathleen Robertson as a young woman with ogle-worthy anatomy; ``Malcolm in the Middle's'' Chris Masterson as a love interest uninterested in love; and Chris Elliott as an eccentric servant with a disfigured hand that accounts for far, far too much of the film's ostensible humor.

Rather head-scratchingly, some terribly forgettable movies are aped here: last year's lousy ``Hollow Man,'' Abel Ferrara's obscure and torpid version of ``Body Snatchers'' and, for an auto-erotic gag, the Larry David stiff ``Sour Grapes.'' On the other hand, tediously obvious parodies include ``Charlie's Angels,'' ``Mission: Impossible 2,'' ``Hannibal,'' Stephen King's ``It'' and/or ``The Game'' and a recent sneaker commercial plastered all over the NBA playoffs. Annoyingly, many of the jokes are simply recognition gags, which any comedian will tell you is the cheapest, easiest form of humor, the cinematic equivalent of the geek down your block barking out ``Beam me up, Scotty!'' apropos of nothing. And given the big bucks the last film made, you'd think they would've sprung for some decent special-effects here, but alas, such is not the case.

Still, when you throw so much stuff up against a wall, something's going to stick, so there are a few admittedly successful laughs here: Cindy out- MacGuyvers ``MacGuyver,'' knitting together a few odds and ends to create a Caterpillar bulldozer in order to escape certain death; Shorty finds a way to deal with a well-proportioned ghoul. A potty-mouthed parrot is good for a laugh or two until that joke, too, is run deep, deep into the ground, past the corpses left behind by the first film.

But that's about it, really. The Wayans family certainly has comic smarts, but they're just slumming it here - that, or they need more outside forces to rein them in. As is, ``Scary Movie 2'' manages to make its mercifully brief 80-minute running time seem as long as ``Pearl Harbor,'' only without as many laughs, inadvertent or not.

``SCARY MOVIE 2''

(Rated R: strong crude sexual humor, language, drug use and violence)

The stars: Shawn Wayons, Marlon Wayons, Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Chris Masterson, Kathleen Robertson, Chris Elliott, James Woods, Tori Spelling.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans. Written by Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Alyson Fouse, Greg Grabianski, Dave Polsky, Michael Anthony Snowden, Craig Wayans.

Running time: One hour, 20 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: 2 stars

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Photo:

Tori Spelling, left, Kathleen Robertson, Chris Elliot, Marlon Wayans and Regina Hall try to scare up laughs in a haunted house in ``Scary Movie 2.''