"That green guy," says sleazy animation boss Daniel Moss. "He's got possibilities. He could be a franchise."

Moss is referring to the lime-skinned human cartoon played by Jim Carrey in "The Mask" (1994) and taken up by Jamie Kennedy (and a few others) in the newly released sequel, "Son of the Mask." And if there is any thought more singularly horrifying than that of a mask franchise, may it never enter this critic's humble noggin.

Gross and witless, assaultive and aggressively loud, "Son of the Mask," written and directed by Lawrence Guterman, assumes an audience will double over at bodily fluid jokes and Wile E. Coyote-ish yuks at the expense of imperiled babies and dogs.

The mask in question, a wooden jobbie that infuses the wearer with the id-powered spirit of the Norse god Loki, is now in the possession of struggling cartoonist Tim Avery (played by Jamie Kennedy). One night, Tim goes to a Halloween party, gets Loki-ized by the mask, jazzes up the party and returns home to impregnate his wife, Tonya (Traylor Howard). Because the resulting baby, Alvey, is "born of the mask," he possesses exceptional powers including, but not limited to, the ability to dance, stretch his limbs and imitate dialogue from Warner Bros. cartoons.

Meanwhile, the

actual

god Loki (Alan Cumming, who must be looking to buy property) wants the mask back to appease his father, Odin (Bob Hoskins, see above). And Otis, the Avery family dog, tends to stick it on his own face and morph into a demented slobbering Jack Russell terrorist hell bent on terrorizing baby Alvey.

During the film's 86 painful minutes, we watch our hero Tim get menaced, clobbered and drenched in buckets of projectile puke and baby urine. Having sat through "Son of the Mask," I know exactly how that must feel.