The ninth feature in Tyler Perry‘s Madea series (not including various Madea videos), “Boo! A Madea Halloween” began as a parody of a typical Madea film in Chris Rock‘s 2014 comedy “Top Five.” Perry’s producers liked the idea of Rock’s send-up of Madea, and so Perry has obliged them with a movie set at Halloween with a variety of youthful YouTube personalities in support.
It isn’t clear if Perry realizes that he is setting himself up for a lot of criticism from his detractors with the basic premise of this film. One of the most offensive stereotypes about African-Americans in older movies is that they are exaggeratedly afraid of things, and Perry’s Madea character plays into that here when she says, “You know black people are scared of every damn thing” and makes reference to voodoo down in New Orleans. Yet Perry mostly skirts this very serious problem by mainly avoiding scenes where his characters are scared, which is why the tone and plot of the film keeps swinging this way and that.
The conflict in “Boo! A Madea Halloween” is that the straight-laced Brian, who is also played by Perry, is having trouble disciplining his teenaged daughter Tiffany (Diamond White) after his wife left him for another man. This conflict is discussed in a very strange scene in which Brian talks about the abusive discipline of his own youth with Madea and his father Joe, who is also played by Perry. It is said that Madea put Brian on life-support when he was four years old, and that Joe threw him off a roof and that a pencil in Brian’s pocket pierced his testicles. These very harsh details aren’t at all funny, and they aren’t really played for laughs.
And so we have three Tyler Perry‘s in this scene, one dressed in drag, one dressed as an old man, and one who looks and sounds like the real Perry, and all of them are discussing outrageous physical cruelty toward a child. There is an air of psychodrama about all of this, as if Perry is working through his own issues about childhood abuse through the broad comedy characters he has created, and this is unsettling, to say the least. The crux of this movie is that Madea and Joe were monsters to the children in their care but Brian is too lenient, and so Brian has to learn to stand up to his daughter, which he does in a scene where Perry is very focused and impassioned.
Perry is in an odd position. He started out on an amateur level, but his films made money and continue to make money, and he has gained in assurance as a writer and a filmmaker and a performer. He’s a very hard-working comic, and he can be funny, especially when he delivers lines as Madea in a fast, throwaway style. Perry has said that Madea is mainly based on his own aunt, and there does seem to be a human basis for this character, who has probably become a kind of albatross for Perry that he can never shake off.
There is often a barnstorming energy to Perry’s movies that can be fairly likable, and the other performers in “Boo! A Madea Halloween” work for and get their share of laughs, particularly Cassi Davis, who gets lots of comic mileage out of her character Aunt Bam’s joy over possessing a prescription card for medical marijuana.
Madea herself makes many references to her past as a “ho” who spent “time on the pole” to earn a living, and she is forever in trouble with the police for credit card fraud and things of that nature. Whether Perry’s Madea is or is not funny comes down to individual taste, and also being able to stomach some low-down humor. Perry plays around with the idea that the other characters are on to his Madea, as when his Joe character says, “That’s a dude,” as Madea goes upstairs to investigate what might be some ghosts in the attic.
When Perry’s Madea says the word “Halloween” it comes out as “Holler-ween,” a sign of her liveliness and of Perry’s own willingness to do anything to make his audience laugh while also sneaking in some of his own emotional concerns. He will likely always be a divisive figure, but he is funnier than some of the other more over-rated comedians of the present day. He is often mocked or put down, but his voice and his sensibility are real, and this is clear even in an iffy project like “Boo! A Madea Halloween.”
All 11 Tyler Perry Madea Movies Ranked From Worst to Best (Photos)
Tyler Perry’s famous character Madea has appeared in nearly half of his films: a gun-toting, “Hallelu-yer”-shouting force of nature, and an outrageous drag tribute to his mother and aunt. But some movies in the Madea Cinematic Universe are gleefully manic, while others arrive in what appears to be a half-finished state of sad melodrama and mediocrity. Not counting her cameo in “Meet the Browns," or "Madea’s Tough Love," here's our favorite Madea mayhem:
11. "Madea's Witness Protection" (2012)
This was the second-highest-grossing Madea movie to date, but it came along at a time when Perry was making minor noise about retiring the character, and it shows. The film looks cheap even by Perry’s budget-minded standards, the jokes are flat, and the director appears tired of the role, having almost no comic rapport with co-star Eugene Levy.
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10. "Madea's Family Reunion" (2006)
The follow-up to Madea’s debut in “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” this movie proves that less Madea screen time means less entertainment. A dramatic abusive-fiancé storyline dominates the film, as do side characters’ preparations for a wedding and family reunion. Madea’s presence is limited to dispensing homespun wisdom to young Keke Palmer, a now-infamous line about shooting Tupac for a parking space, and the delivery of Oprah Winfrey’s “All my life I had to fight…” speech from “The Color Purple."
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9. "Boo 2! A Madea Halloween" (2017)
The first one made money, so Madea gets to be scared stupid all over again in a sequel so sluggish and haphazardly thrown together that it makes the first one seem like classic comedy by comparison. Madea spends most of the film sitting in a Cadillac and having her most florid swears awkwardly dubbed into softer versions.
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8. "A Madea Family Funeral" (2019)
Perry says this is the last Madea movie, and maybe it's time if this inert effort is all he can muster for his signature comic creation. Madea tends to do a lot of sitting around in this one -- a dramedy about infidelity and sudden death -- mocking the stupidity of those around her or dispensing old-fashioned life advice. Missing is her trademark wildness, her willingness to ignore all social convention and sense of decency, replaced by sedentary -- but often still quite funny -- one-liners. Come back when you're feeling it again, Madea.
7. "I Can Do Bad All By Myself" (2009)
The ratio of Madea to melodrama is sadly unbalanced in this near-musical about a troubled nightclub singer (Taraji P. Henson) and her struggle to get by, all while having to deal with caring for her recently orphaned niece and nephews. Madea drops into odd moments here and there for comic relief, but the real reasons to watch are Henson’s moving performance and Mary J. Blige showing up to knock the title song out of the park.
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6. "Boo! A Madea Halloween" (2016)
Chris Rock delivered a readymade name for this dare of a movie in “Top Five”; otherwise it would rightly be called “Madea Scared Stupid.” This time around, she chases her nephew’s rebellious teenage daughter from a fraternity Halloween party to a fake haunted house, battling a gauntlet of zombies, trendy murder-clowns, idiotic frat boys, and slasher movie set-ups. Our heroine tumbles extravagantly down staircases, babbles incoherently, and twerks to a Tyga track. In other words, it delivers pretty much what you expected when you bought a ticket.
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5. "A Madea Christmas" (2013)
Christmas needs saving, and it’s Madea to the rescue. Why it needs saving is irrelevant, but it involves a mean corporation, Larry the Cable Guy, and Lisa Whelchel from “The Facts of Life.” The solution involves Madea donning a Mrs. Claus outfit and laying waste to everyone who gets in the way of her Wonderful Life. She fights the KKK, ties up a misbehaving child with Christmas lights, and calls at least one person a “Satanic loudmouth diarrhea woman,” before going full-on anti-Linus and recounting a bizarrely backward Nativity story. Christmas crisis averted with antics, bringing much-needed chaos to a character whose energy seemed to be flagging.
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4. "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" (2005)
Perry introduced Madea to film audiences with a chainsaw, a “Mommie Dearest” gag about wire hangers, and a heavy dose of Bugs Bunny–style chaos, all in the strange service of an otherwise serious melodrama about marital discord and domestic abuse. When Madea’s tormented granddaughter (Kimberly Elise) winds up on her doorstep after fleeing a horrible husband, Madea helps the young woman with wild advice and a maniac’s zeal for destructive revenge. At one point, co-star Cicely Tyson admonishes Madea: “God takes care of folks better than you can,” to which Madea responds, “God takes too long.”
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3. "Madea Goes to Jail" (2009)
Madea’s criminal history involves a litany of charges including identity theft, insurance fraud, and attempted murder. This time around she defies court-ordered anger management (with Dr. Phil) and mocks her daughter Cora’s peaceful faith in Jesus. Landing in prison after destroying a racist woman’s car, she befriends serial killer Sofia Vergara, battles a predatory inmate, and gets released on a technicality, dancing out of the joint. The highest-grossing Madea film, and the one in which she’s almost conscience-free, as close to pure id as a human being can be without transforming into a cartoon Tasmanian Devil.
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2. "Madea's Big Happy Family" (2011)
The perfect combination of family dysfunction (featuring a solidly moving performance from Loretta Devine as a cancer-stricken mother) and a barnstorming Madea. The matriarch comes on like a tornado as she destroys a fast-food restaurant with both her car and her body, freestyle-lectures Christians on the “prescriptures” in the Bible, handily insults every person who crosses her path, and nearly meets her match when sparring with the wild and wicked Teyana Taylor.
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1. "A Madea Homecoming" (2022)
After years of working within the constraints of the PG-13 rating, the profane side of Madea triumphs, waving a gun, and dispensing edibles from her purse. A family reunion involving her great-grandson's college graduation -- one that brings the usual dose of family conflict, wisely solved by Madea in a late-narrative moment of lucidity -- turns this ensemble comedy into the funniest and best-directed Tyler Perry film since "Madea's Big Happy Family." A welcome -- and wild -- flashback sequence involving young Madea and an end credits mini-documentary crank up the chaos.
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Where does ”A Madea Homecoming“ rank in the Madea Cinematic Universe?
Tyler Perry’s famous character Madea has appeared in nearly half of his films: a gun-toting, “Hallelu-yer”-shouting force of nature, and an outrageous drag tribute to his mother and aunt. But some movies in the Madea Cinematic Universe are gleefully manic, while others arrive in what appears to be a half-finished state of sad melodrama and mediocrity. Not counting her cameo in “Meet the Browns," or "Madea’s Tough Love," here's our favorite Madea mayhem:
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