Author Robert Block (Psycho) described comedy and horror as “opposite sides of the same coin.” Since the silent days, movies have blended the styles, and, by 1948, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was doing bigger box office numbers than Universal’s straight horror pictures at the time. Comic relief is often a function of a good thriller, with a laugh used to either break tension, or to disarm us so we’re less prepared for the terror to come. And, of course, there are plenty of horror movies that don’t just sneak in the comedy—they make it a selling point, blending these two extreme emotions like contrasting flavours that go unexpectedly well together.
Here’s where to stream them locally (where available).
Housebound (2014)
There’s a simple but reasonably good setup here: Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly) is sentenced to house arrest (with her mother, horror of horrors) after busting open an ATM in spectacularly amateur fashion. The house is appropriately ominous, and the exhausting mom (Rima Te Wiata) is also convinced that it’s haunted. When weird things start to happen, Kylie believes that there’s an intruder from whom she couldn’t escape if she wanted to, what with the ankle monitor. Australian filmmaker Gerard Johnstone has constructed a deeply chilling haunted house story that also recognizes how absurd haunted house stories are, blending comedy with horror in just the right amounts.
Where to scream: SBS On Demand
Deadstream (2022)
There’s life in the found-footage genre yet, as proven by this year’s most inventive horror-comedy, which cleverly calls back to the original Evil Dead with its blend of goofy good humor and wonderfully gross practical effects. Director/star Joseph Winter plays Shawn, a once-popular YouTube personality working on a comeback (one of the movie’s most clever conceits is in tricking you into liking a character who, it becomes increasingly clear, doesn’t deserve your love). Beloved for his outrageous stunts, he builds an all-night livestream around locking himself in a purportedly haunted house. You can certainly see where that’s going, but Winter and company deftly blend solid scares, technical wizardry, and a few laughs into a movie that’s uniquely fun while still managing to get in some good digs at our toxic social media landscape.
Scary Movie (2000)
Doing a parody of Scream, already a kind-of parody in itself, could have been a meta bridge too far—but the Keenan Ivory Wayans-directed made it work, mostly. The comedy is very broad, and benefits from a reasonable knowledge of late ‘90s horror movies, but plenty of jokes land, and it’s funnier than it has any right to be. Anna Paris stars, but Regina Hall steals the movie as Brenda Meeks, never failing to say exactly what we’re all thinking.
Where to scream: Binge, Stan
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Before it was a show, Shadows was an also-great comedy starring, written, and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. As the franchise has proven, there are plenty of laughs to be mined from the concept of traditional, old-school vampires coming across as neither sexy nor cool when faced with the modern world.
Where to scream: Stan
Werewolves Within (2021)
Though it sank at the box office during its COVID-era limited release, Werewolves Within is a shockingly good adaptation of a video game. The movie version plays a bit like a slightly bloodier Clue: shortly after the arrival of dorky new forest ranger Finn Wheeler (Veep’s Sam Richardson, who’s delightful here), a number of bizarre attacks lead the townspeople to conclude a werewolf resides among them, and a lot of finger-pointing (and worse) ensues. Director Josh Ruben, whose earlier film Scare Me was similarly delightful, strikes just the right balance between scares and laughs. The fun cast includes What We Do in the Shadows’ Harvey Guillén.
Happy Death Day (2017)
A very funny slasher film that also manages plenty of heart, Happy Death Day finds shallow, cliquish sorority girl Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) getting murdered by a mysterious killer—over and over again. With the Groundhog Day-like premise (with hints of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), she’s forced to rely on her wits (and the nerdy guy that she’d never ordinarily talk to) in order to solve her own murder and break the cycle. The movie has plenty of fun putting resourceful, but snotty, Tree through her paces day after day, while also getting some very dark laughs out of the increasingly elaborate deaths she faces. The sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, is very nearly as much fun.
We Have a Ghost (2023)
Christopher Landon, writer/director behind innovative comedy-horror movies like Happy Death Day and Freaky (and the next Scream movie), helms this similarly fun but more family-friendly entry. Anthony Mackie is in the lead as Frank Presley, who, with his family, buys a cheap fixer-upper, only for his son Kevin (Jahi Winston) to discover a ghost (played by David Harbour) unliving in the attic. So far, familiar territory, but Kevin wants to help their new ghost while dad only wants to make money—and so, their ghost goes viral. It’s cute, and includes an appearance from Jennifer Coolidge, who makes everything funnier.
Where to scream: Netflix
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
Agatha Christie-style whodunnits are never entirely out of fashion, and certainly not this year, thanks to movies like Glass Onion and director Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, which finds a group of 20-somethings trapped in a mansion during a hurricane when the titular bodies his the floor. Class consciousness is often at the heart of modern murder mysteries, and that’s very much the case here, as is our modern preoccupation with using our online presences to obscure our true identities and motives.
Where to scream: Binge, Prime Video
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
Bruce Campbell plays an aged Elvis Presley alongside Ossie Davis’ John F. Kennedy in a nursing home plagued by an ancient Egyptian mummy. That enjoyably silly premise (not to mention Campbell’s involvement) is nearly enough to guarantee the film’s cult status, but writer/director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) treats his lead characters with a surprising and elevating dignity.
Cabin in the Woods (2011)
There have been countless “cabin in the wood”-style horror movies, with every possible variation of the many associated tropes done to death; Sam Raimi was already parodying and subverting the genre with his Evil Dead movies way back in the 1980s. We know these movies, and we know how they’re meant to work. While it initially looks like Cabin in the Woods is a laugh-filled Scream-style deconstruction of the subgenre, it soon reveals itself to be something far more ambitious. While the trailer makes it clear that something weird is going on, the movies veers between comedy and existential dread with shocking agility.
Where to scream: Stan, Prime Video
Gremlins (1984)
It’s a Christmas movie! And also a parody of Christmas movies. It’s definitely a horror movie, but, in the mid ‘80s, you could buy dolls, action figures, and storybooks with Gremlins on them, which, given how violent and nightmare-inducing the film is, is both impressively twisted and a deep indictment of a consumer culture in which we’ll sell anything to anyone. It’s truly twisted, with a sequel that goes even further over the top.
Where to scream: Binge
Arachnophobia (1990)
Though mostly played for laughs, director Frank Marshall’s spider-attack movie, about the mayhem that unfolds after a hapless nature photographer brings an arachnid hitchhiker back from a trip to the jungle, includes more than one genuinely squirm-inducing moment for anyone who shares the title fear, even a little bit (it involves a slipper). There’s some real terror here for anyone who’s even remotely skeeved out by anything with so many legs.
Evil Dead II (1987)
Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi returned for this sequel that’s very nearly a remake of the first one, but far gloopier. Raimi clearly feels as though upping the gore to ridiculous levels makes for a funnier movie—and he is 1000% correct. Seriously, directors: Keep pumping the blood, we’ll keep laughing.
Where to scream: Binge, Stan
Cocaine Bear (2023)
A very deliberate B-movie, Cocaine Bear nonetheless boasts all-star talent behind and in front of the camera: Elizabeth Banks directs, with Keri Russell in the lead. Based, loosely, on a true story, the title pretty much gives up the premise: American black bear snorts around 75 lb of coke and goes apeshit.
Where to scream: Netflix, Binge
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
After Night of the Living Dead, George Romero and the film’s co-writer, John Russo, parted ways, sending the unlikely franchise off in different directions. Romero’s films play as serious social commentary, while Russo’s take is deeply satirical, mocking American capitalism, as well as the punks and goth who oppose it in equal measure. It’s genuinely very funny, as when the zombies wipe out some paramedics and manage to muster up enough eloquence to request that the radio dispatcher “Send more paramedics.”
The Quiet Family (1998)
Starring Song Kang-ho (Snowpiercer, Parasite), The Quiet Family finds an extended family moving from Seoul into the mountains for a taste of the slow life; they’ve bought a big house that they’re going to turn into a hiking lodge. It all sounds lovely until they have to deal with first one body, then another, then more bodies when they try to cover up the other deaths. It’s all gloriously absurd.
Idle Hands (1999)
It takes clueless stoner Anton Tobias (Devon Sawa) a week or so to notice that his parents have gone missing (where did the cat get an eyeball?), but it’s not long before he realizes that his hand is possessed (relatable), and that it’ll keep on killing, even when severed from his arm. I suppose that there’s also a metaphor in play about handsy high schoolers, but it’s probably best not to give the movie all that much thought and just have fun.
Bride of Chucky (1998)
Most of the Child’s Play movies play with comedy to varying degrees (it’s a strength of the series that it recognizes its inherent silliness), but Bride of Chucky introduces Jennifer Tilly’s Tiffany as Chucky’s equally deranged counterpart, and her performance takes things to a whole new level. By the time the two dolls creatively murder a con artist couple and have sex in the aftermath, it’s pretty clear what kinda weird-ass movie we’re in. The sequel, Seed of Chucky, goes even further into comedy.
M3GAN (2022)
More killer dolls, more problems. By the time bad surrogate parent and unlikely gay icon M3GAN shows off her killer moves on the way to machete some guys to death with the blade of a paper cutter, it’s clear we’re witnessing the birth of a comedy-horror star.
Where to scream: Netflix, Binge
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)
The perfect pairing of Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk finds the two scruffy hillbillies on the wrong side of one of the oldest slasher movie tropes: Their appearance convinces a bunch of college-age campers that they’re the backwoods types that are likely to murder them while they sleep. A series of mostly hilarious misunderstandings only deepen the confusion in a movie that has surprising heart for all its silliness.
Where to scream: Stan
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
The instant classic of the comedy-horror genre, Shaun of the Dead also ranks among the best zombie movies. Slacker Shaun (Simon Pegg) lives with his lazy best friend, Ed (Nick Frost) on the outskirts of London. There’s some genuine thrill to be had in watching the two gradually step up in the face of the zombie apocalypse, and the movie kicks off with a great core joke: In a world of mindless routine and pointless consumption, you hardly even notice that zombies have taken over.
Where to scream: Netflix, Binge
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
I’m not sure that Sleepaway Camp was intended to be funny, but there are so many strange moments and weird decisions in the movie that it’s hard not to watch it with modern eyes as a solid parody of the Friday the 13th genre. it’s a cult classic for that reason, as well as for a bonkers twist ending that’s either empowering or deeply offensive.
One Cut of the Dead (2017)
The micro-budget Japanese movie’s opening is a 37-minute continuous take involving a zombie-movie film crew attacked by actual zombies. Which is all clever, and includes several fun gags. The movie eared its reputation, though, on the major narrative inversions that happen in its second and third acts, the types of twists that throw everything you’ve seen before into question. Best watched not knowing more than that, really.
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Two American backpackers, David and Jack (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne) are attacked by a werewolf while traveling in England. With the help of some incredible, gut-churning practical effects, David becomes an increasingly dangerous wolf man—while Jack becomes his increasingly smart-assed ghost corpse companion.
Where to scream: Stan
Lead Image Credit: A24/Warner Bros/Universal
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.