Lame spoof horror has a few laughs but lobotomy of some sorts required to enjoy.

The movie has been marketed as a film for lovers of the Scary Movie series. But although Scary Movie managed to keep the silliness going with some kind of story line framing the silliness Stan Helsing just descends into utter nonsense.

The art of a good spoof is a modicum of ‘straight’ acting interspersed with the general goofiness. This movie reeked of just a vehicle to hang as many gags and one liners onto. Which is shame because there are lots of really lowest denominator and puerile gross out jokes scattered through the movie which you do involuntarily laugh at but the plot is so whimsical and the characters so flimsy that it’s hard to hold your attention for long before you start to think about cleaning that old pair of dirty boots in the cupboard.

Do silly spoofs need a storyline? It’s just silly comedy right? Well, no the spoof genre has produced some classic comedy films over the years but this felt just plain lazy. A clever spoof can appeal to spotty 12-years old to adults with beards.

Airplane being the daddy of spoofs which incidentally starred Leslie Nelson who makes an appearance in Stan Helsing as a cross dressing waitress. If every an actor was born to spoof it was Nelson which his turns in Police Story and Naked Gun are testament too. But along side Airplane you have Hot Shots, Austen Powers and Scary Movie that are good examples.

What does Stan Helsing have? Well the well trodden path of real horror characters going about in daily life and as it’s Halloween no one bats an eyelid, it’s all too familiar and so self referential that it becomes boring quickly.