Screenwriting duo Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant published a very funny memoir, “Writing Movies for Fun and Profit,” a couple of years ago. But it’s hard to imagine their low-aiming directorial debut accomplishing the latter goal.
In this sporadically amusing exorcism spoof, Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb are expectant parents who’ve made an urban-pioneer purchase of a rundown New Orleans mansion with an ominous nickname (“House of Blood”). Weird things begin happening straightaway, and a nosy neighbor (Keegan Michael Key) has a way of popping up unannounced and terrifying them, in the one running gag that doesn’t get old.
Lennon and Garant’s shtick as chain-smoking Vatican exorcists does, though, and the film’s reliance on female nudity for edge seems approximately as ancient as the withered hag who keeps trying to get it on with Corddry. Various comics pop by in supporting roles: Kumail Nanjiani stands out as a too-stoned cable guy, while Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel do a sarcastic-cop bit. But the birth of the titular infant — what the whole movie’s leading up to — is just an anticlimactic mess.
Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (language, nudity, scary imagery). At the Empire, 42nd Street near Eighth Avenue.