Boo! A Madea Halloween

Plot

The film begins with Jonathan and his fellow fraternity brothers discussing their upcoming Halloween party. Tiffany and her three friends Aday, Rain and Leah are walking past their frat house, as Jonathan and rest of them all come out to invite them to the party and seem to flirt a little. Brian catches them at the frat house, which he has ordered Tiffany not to walk by and orders her and her friends to get in the car, in which she refuses and tells him they can walk home, because it's right around the corner. Brian forbids her from going near the frat house and reveals that he is sending her and her brother to their mom's house while he is out of town, much to her dismay. Brian then spies on Tiffany's conversation with Jonathan, the frat president, on a tablet and notices how sexual things seem to be getting.

Meanwhile, Madea and Aunt Bam are sitting outside of her home giving away candy to kids trick-or-treating while Bam is secretly stealing the children's candy until one kid (dressed as a cow, which Madea mocks the kid's mother for) notices her stealing his and an argument ensues. After that a clown approaches with a huge jack-in-the-box, which frightens Bam. As the clown is approaching, Madea is threatening him and dares something to jump out of the box. Another clowns pops out and she's punches the clown, causing it to fall out of the box. It is revealed to be Joe and Hattie who explained they were just trying to scare them for fun. Meanwhile, in order to keep Tiffany from sneaking off to the Halloween party, Brian calls Madea, out of options, to stay there and look after Tiffany to keep her away from the party which Joe and Hattie tag along for after Brian promises to pay Madea. Tiffany and her friend Aday, realizing that Madea and the others are there to watch them, decide to trick them into sleeping early by faking a story about how a man named Mr. Wilson who committed murders in their house and the only safe rooms are the bedrooms and she then convinces them by secretly hitting a remote control to turn the lights off in the house.

Tiffany and Aday sneak off to the party but Madea sees through the scheme after finding pillows placed under the blankets to look as if they are sleeping. Madea searches for Tiffany, but Tiffany's friends and Jonathan both lie to cover for her. Madea shuts the party down but is thrown out by the frat brothers into the bushes, by Jonathan's orders and leaves defeated. However, one of the frat brothers discovers that Aday is underage and throws her out of the party which is then shut down again when Bam calls the police due to Tiffany being underage. The frat brothers realize that Madea and her friends are the ones behind it and decide to prank them back by scaring them, unaware that Aday has been hiding behind the outside staircase and overheard their entire plan.

Back at home, Tiffany still claims that she was asleep the whole time and had been sleeping in her father's room. The brothers begin their pranks by scaring Hattie, Joe and Bam by posing as the ghost of Mr. Wilson (which Jonathan had learned from Tiffany earlier) and by one of the frat boys, Horse (Brock O'hurn) appearing as a clown in the house. Madea, Hattie, Bam and Joe drive away out of fear and leave Joe alone with the clown which he knocks out with his cane while he is smoking pot.

Madea's car breaks down up the road and the three are pursued by the rest of the frat and partygoers who are posing as zombies that chase them down. Madea goes into the church led by Aday's parents and finds interest in being saved, believing that the things she is seeing are punishment for her sins. Aday's father and Aday reveal to Madea that all of the things happening were pranks being played on them by the frat brothers as revenge for shutting down the party. Aday, her father, Hattie, Joe, Bam and Madea decide to prank the brothers back.

Brian is also called back into town to deal with Tiffany for sneaking off. When Brian orders her to come downstairs she is first hesitate then finally comes down. When he asks and confronts her about sneaking off to the party, she boldly admits to it and tells him to get over It. It is clear Tiffany has zero respect for Brian as a parent due to him being a pushover and refusing to discipline his kids the same way he was raised by Joe. Madea, Hattie and Bam begin to pack Tiffany's clothes up in bags to throw her out of the house. This plan works and Tiffany and Brian lay their feelings out about Brian's wife cheating on him and him being a pushover. Brian, finally toughening up, participates in helping to throw her out and exclaims that she can either live there with him, abiding by his rules or go out on the street on her own. Tiffany apologizes to Brian and the women for her behavior and agrees to listen to her father's rules. Afterwards, the police return to Brian's house looking for Tiffany, revealing to her that her best friend, Aday has gone missing. They then take her with them and handcuff her.

The next day, the police knock on the door of the frat house and one of the brothers discovers the body of Aday with a throat slit full of blood in the basement. The brothers are arrested after the police find Aday's body and a bag of marijuana and they are all placed on a prison bus along with her and Aday's friends, Rain and Leah. A brawl breaks out on the bus with the prisoners, scaring everyone including Jonathan. Aday comes out of the house and everything is revealed to be a prank with Jonathan apologizing as well. Madea, much to her shock, learns that Brian called in actual police officers, one of which recognizes Madea. Madea, Jonathan and the rest of the frat brothers flee from the officers as the film ends.

Cast

Production

Production on Boo! A Madea Halloween began in mid-January 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia, with filming only lasting six days. On March 4, 2016, Lionsgate released a teaser trailer for the film, and on July 14, 2016 the official trailer was released, as well as a parody poster of Halloween.

Box office

Boo! A Madea Halloween grossed $73.2 million in North America and $1.6 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $74.8 million, against a budget of $20 million.

The film was released on October 21, 2016 and opened alongside Ouija: Origin of Evil and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and was expected to gross $15–17 million from 2,260 theaters in its opening weekend. The film grossed $9.4 million on its first day and an above-expected $27.6 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office and ranking as the fourth-best debut for a Perry film. In its second weekend the film grossed $17.2 million (a drop of only 39.6%) and remained first at the box office, despite facing competition with the newcomer Inferno ($14.9 million).

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 21% based on 33 reviews, with an average rating of 3.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Boo! A Madea Halloween won't win Tyler Perry's long-running franchise many new converts – but at nine films and counting, it hardly needs to." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 30 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.