I have a friend who is deeply into Tyler Perry movies. It started innocently enough with one, but soon she felt compelled to watch all his movies, and she tried to get me to go down that road. I’m a completist and am aware that if I like something, it consumes my life so I stayed away until I saw a preview for Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween before the Ghostbusters reboot with Leslie Jones. I have to admit that I thought it was hilarious and decided to dip a toe.
Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween is about a father enlisting his aunt Madea’s help in insuring that his underage daughter does not go to a Halloween party at a nearby frat. Apparently that means bringing an entourage consisting of her friends and her brother, who is the grandfather, does not even like Madea and may objectively be a horrible person. Because I only recently emerged from under a rock, I discovered that Tyler Perry movies apparently have a moral: respect and listen to your daddy or you’ll end up a hooker, which seems like very dramatic consequences and a few steps got skipped before hooker, but OK.
Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween would be funnier if it was just Tyler Perry as dad ripping on frat boys and Madea and Aunt Bam. Black people reacting to what they believe are supernatural events is reliably hilarious. Real talk: when my mom goes outside our home to investigate a noise, I try to get her not to do it then I lock the door behind her. I loved how it was every person for his or herself. No one thought twice about cursing out and beating up a clown that assaulted them. “Help me, Jesus!” Aunt Bam and her canes were too much. Y’all could have given those old folks a heart attack. “Ho-01K”
Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween is entertaining, but is not the nonstop laugh fest that I expected after the preview. At times, it is mind numbingly wooden and spectacularly unfunny. I don’t think that I’m in danger of becoming a Tyler Perry addict.