Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.0

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween Blu-ray Movie Review

If you put on a mask, you may be incapable of seeing this.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 31, 2018

The last time I checked, I’m almost positive Halloween was scheduled for the end of October, but the seemingly unstoppable Tyler Perry has evidently decided that becoming a one man filmmaking industry isn't enough for him, and that rearranging the calendar might offer a more challenging prospect. Perry must have concluded that the holiday should be better celebrated in the early months of the year, at least as evidenced by first the January 2017 release of Boo! A Madea Halloween and now the January 2018 release of this largely lamentable follow up. Regular readers of my reviews know that Mr. Perry has been something like the bane of my critic’s existence for several years, something that is only all the more annoying because it’s obvious that this so-called “multi hyphenate” is inordinately talented in any number of ways. (And for those who may have come to the conclusion that I am just preternaturally prone to being negative about Perry’s cinematic output, I’d refer you to my For Colored Girls Blu-ray review.) The first Boo! A Madea Halloween ended up being something of a shaggy dog (and/or ghost) story, and unfortunately Perry returns to the same well again for this sequel, something he seems increasingly incapable of avoiding. Any Perry fan is going to know where this film is going from the get go, and as seems to be the case with Perry’s following, they probably won’t care one whit that they’ve seen this all before in various guises, either in other Perry films or other offerings that this particular outing is supposedly meant to be skewering.

Once again bratty teen Tiffany Simmons (Diamond White) is at the center of the shenanigans, and as if she didn’t learn her lesson in Boo! A Madea Halloween, she’s still chasing after the guys in a local frat house who pranked everyone in the first film. The opening half hour or so of this particular Halloween escapade actually details the fraying family dynamics of the Simmons clan, which includes Tiffany’s divorced parents Brian (Tyler Perry) and Deborah (Taja V. Simpson), and which extends to outlying relatives like Madea herself (Perry again, of course) and Uncle Joe (guess who). Brian and Deborah have completely different parenting styles which come to a head on Tiffany’s birthday, and they also have differing opinions about whether she should go on a rural campout with a bunch of kids, including the frat guys.

Suffice it to say Tiffany of course does head off into the woods, a sylvan glade with a nefarious past that includes a series of murders a la Friday the 13th: 8-Movie Collection. Ultimately that fact raises the hackles of Madea, who steps in with her coterie of batty friends and Uncle Joe to “save” Tiffany. The film ping pongs back and forth between the kids at the party, who start to experience supposedly paranormal phenomena like chainsaw wielding madmen (who disappear just about as quickly as they appear), and various vignettes involving Madea and the others as they travel to the party. It’s all relentlessly noisy and frenetic, and absent any decent laughs.

This Boo! has more or less the same denouement (in “style” if not in actual content) that the first film did, but it also hedges its bets with a couple of incidents that are never completely explained. There’s even a supposedly hilarious coda of sorts that seeks to suggest the “explanation” given to events doesn’t completely account for all of them. But it’s all just pointless, really, since the film never develops any comedic rhythm and simply tends to hobble from sequence to sequence.

Perhaps the oddest thing about Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, though, is the relative scarcity of its title character. This is in fact much more Uncle Joe’s film, in terms of both screen time and ostensible punch lines, than it is the grand doyenne’s of Perry’s cinematic universe. That may indicate that even Perry is finding it hard to come up with enough material for this ubiquitous character, though if history is any indication, that won’t stop him from continuing to try.

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. While this transfer offers generally fine detail levels, it's hampered by the fact that the bulk of the story plays out at nighttime, where fine detail levels at least occasionally falter and noise creeps into the image at times. In the brightly lit moments, typically bookends like the film's first half hour and then an extended sequence at a police station at the end, offer a nicely saturated palette and much better fine detail levels than the longer middle section. Shadow detail is pretty variable throughout, and a couple of the supposed "scares" (which really aren't all that scary) tend not to have much impact, or at least as much as may have been intended, since the imagery is so murky and ill defined. I have to say from a production design standpoint, this film is actually kind of shockingly shoddy, considering the fact that Perry almost always has nicely appointed sets and costumes.

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween features a decent sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, but this film perhaps surprisingly isn't stuffed to the gills with source cues like a lot of other Perry offerings. Instead, surround activity tends to come almost exclusively from the raucous sounds of the party as well as some of the sonic mayhem caused by the assailants with those buzzing chainsaws. Dialogue is rendered clearly and cleanly and fidelity is fine throughout.

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Outtakes (1080p; 5:49)


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 1:47)


• Caddy Whack Boo (1080p; 9:13) concentrates on the "old biddies" of the film.


• Why We Love Joe! (1080p; 6:46) probably isn't any more convincing than a similarly named supplement on the first Boo Blu-ray release.

Boo 2! A Madea Halloween Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The more observant reader will note that I gave the first Boo! 1.5 stars and have demoted this follow up down to 1.0, which means if this trend continues, we only have two more Boo! films to get through before I run out of stars and don't have to review them anymore. Yes, that's a joke, and you know what? To me, anyway, it's funnier than almost everything in this pretty lamentable enterprise. Video is a little spotty, but audio is fine, for those considering a purchase.