Depending on one’s mood, “Bones,” a Gothic thriller starring hip-hop superstar Snoop Dogg, is either (a) so bad it’s funny, or (b) so bad it overshoots funny and goes back to bad again.

In both cases, it’s a garish, grotesque slab of silliness drowned in bloody visual effects overkill with an end result that is more horrible than horrific.

Its targeted young urban male demographic, looking for a little midweek pre-Halloween distraction, might initially be drawn by what is touted as Snoop Dogg’s first starring role, but ultimately the New Line release shouldn’t expect to make much in the way of bones at the boxoffice.

Ironically, for a project supposedly tailor-made for the laid-back rapper, Snoop Dogg doesn’t log a lot of screen time as a superfly ghost circa 1979 who takes care of a little vengeance-related business.

The real star of the picture is the nasty-looking, haunted brownstone in a bad part of town that entrepreneurial brothers Patrick (Khalil Kain) and Bill (Merwin Mondesir) have in mind to convert into a happening club.

Refusing to heed any number of obvious signs that their property could have more than a few skeletons in its decrepit closets, the siblings, with a little help from stepsister Tia (Katharine Isabelle) and friend Maurice (Sean Amsing), proceed with their plans.

What they don’t know is that back in the day, the building was the swank headquarters for neighborhood protector Jimmy Bones (Snoop Dogg), who, according to an old rhyme, “got a switchblade loose and a diamond on his hand.”

As the flashbacks reveal, when Jimmy refuses to deal crack cocaine to his people, he’s murdered, Julius Caesar-style, by a number of those who were seemingly closest to him.

Back in the present, all the renovations have succeeded in disturbing Jimmy’s resting place, with predictably dire results.

Admittedly, those bleached-out groovy ’70s flashbacks are sort of fun at first, and Snoop Dogg fits in convincingly with the era, especially when he’s joined by his Afro-coiffed woman, Pearl (played by the ageless Pam Grier).

But it all quickly gives way to tired, over-the-top excess.

Director Ernest Dickerson, best known for his fine lensing work with Spike Lee, in correctly assessing that the bare-bones Scooby-Doo-in-the-Dogg-pound script (penned by Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe) needed some visual oomph, slams it with a barrage of extreme imagery that makes some of the wilder stuff in “The Cell” look refined by comparison.

By the time the bickering severed heads make an appearance, “Bones” has already tried so many recycled tones on for size that the strange stench emanating from that funky brownstone has the unmistakable odor of desperation, and it’s not a pleasant sensation.