Stan Helsing (2009)

Anyone who's followed the '(insert genre being parodied) Movie' series will know that the series has steadily gone downhill since the quite good 'Scary Movie'. While 'Stan Helsing' may have avoided the 'Movie' title, it's just as bad as the worst of the preceding films.

The barely-there plot involves four friends, Stan Helsing (Steve Howey), Nadine (Diora Baird), Teddy (Kenan Thompson) and Mia (Desi Lydic). On the way to a Halloween party, they are stranded in an isolated town and eventually forced to fight 'parodies' of six famous movie monsters Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Chucky, Pinhead and Mike Myers.

The problem with SH is it's just not funny. While meant to be a parody of monster movies, the six monsters aren't given enough screen time to justify the parody. The main characters are lazy stereotypes: Stan is a commitment-phobic slacker who refuses to believe his destiny as Van Helsing, Nadine is the bitchy ex-girlfriend (unfortunatley for Baird, her performance is overshadowed by her breasts, which are on disply throughout the film), Mia is the ridiciously stupid and incredibly slutty blonde (though, to Lydic's credit, she at least goes about with a smile on her face). Finally, Teddy is the typical jive-talking token black guy even though Thompson is quite funny and could be even better with a half-decent script. The biggest indignity falls to comedy legend Leslie Nielsen, who spends the entire film in drag.

Like previous films, it reverts to gross-out humour and lots of sexual references for laughs and it comes off as desperate.

Even if, like me, you see these films as a guilty pleasure despite their poor quality, 'Stan Helsing' is still disappointing.