Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween | Scares up very few laughs

(Image credit: © Lionsgate Entertainment)

The Night She Came Home!

Tyler Perry’s Madea is black America’s answer to Mrs Brown - a sharp-tongued matriarch with a sentimental pride in family values. And just like Brendan O’Carroll’s foul-mouthed Irish mammy, Perry's drag creation elicits pant-wetting hilarity in fans and bafflement in everyone else.

Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween - a horror comedy and the ninth Madea film - is more of the same and finds Perry’s sassy old timer getting her own back on a bunch of rowdy frat boys over Halloween, while keeping her bratty great-niece (Diamond White) in line. Scares are non-existent, the comedy crude and the filmmaking slipshod. The movie made me chuckle once in 100 minutes but went down a treat with devotees and has already generated a sequel.

Certificate 12A. Runtime 99 mins. Director Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween debuts on Sky Cinema Premiere on Monday 30 October. Available on DVD & Digital from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sPHseSGr9Q

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.