Humor and Fear look a lot alike, as
far as the body reactions go. Laughter is an expression of surprise. So, too,
is a scream. The difference? Watching Curly hit Moe with a shovel, and watching
a cat jump out of a darkened recess in the space ship when everyone is looking
for the alien. Those two scenarios are considered miles apart. But something
really interesting happens when you start moving them closer together.
The Horror-Comedy
movie (or, if you prefer, the Comedy-Horror movie) is one of those rare,
fragile and delicate kinds of movies that is very tricky to pull off without
tipping the scales one way or the other. It takes only a nudge to turn a
comedic horror movie into parody, or worse, a self-referential meta-movie that
becomes insider baseball. Likewise, if you’re not funny enough, the laughs will
be more of the nervous variety than the knee-slapping kind. Not that there’s
ever any real belly laughs in a Horror-Comedy movie. It’s more of a
sensibility; not quite a slice-of-life motif, but the best of their kind manage
to use a combination of setting and dialogue to keep you rooted in the story,
rather than overwhelm you with gags.
So, obviously, for this list, I’m
not talking about any of the Scary Movie-type films, or Mel Brooks
movies, or anything like that. Those are comedies that make fun of the horror
genre. Not the same thing. Ideally, these movies should be built on a framework
or horror and then leavened with comedy. That’s my criteria, and you’re
probably not going to agree with me much here, as comedy is perhaps the most
subjective of all the storytelling forms. What’s funny to you will probably not
be so funny to me, as we will no doubt see.
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
This is the only incarnation
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I actually like. Christy Swanson
is the Slayer, and she’s trained by Donald Sutherland, The Watcher, to kill the
Master Vampire, played by Rutger Hauer. You know all of this, right? Or, maybe
you know about the show, right? Well, this was the movie where it all started,
and nothing against the Buffy fans of the world, but this movie could have been
a stand-alone project and done just fine.
What’s funny about the movie is,
well, the Joss Whedon dialogue. That’s about all he liked regarding the movie,
and if you want to see what he would have done from the get-go, there’s the TV
series for you to get lost in. As a stand-alone project, it’s a sly commentary
on vampire movies without nodding and winking at the audience every ten
seconds. There are some legitimately funny lines and scenes in the movie that
echo other films and vampire stories—on purpose—but never really as homage.
That cheerful irreverence is what allows the movie to keep its comedic edge.
This is probably the last movie were
Luke Perry looked like a teenager—meaning, 19 and eleven twelfths if you squint
really hard and think about Beverly Hills 90210. Davis Arquette is
in the film, being funny, as is Paul Reubens in a rare turn sans Pee Wee Herman suit. The scary
scenes are at least played straight, and there are a couple that genuinely
chill the blood, if you’ve never seen Salem’s Lot before. I’m not a
fan of the TV series, but as a one-and-done project, the re-watchability factor
for Buffy the Vampire Slayer is quite
high.
4. Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Diablo Cody’s sophomore offering
after she won the Oscar for Juno for Best Original Screenplay
was Jennifer’s Body, a “high school is hell” allegory that starred
Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox. Of the mixed reviews it received, there were
complaints that it didn’t go far enough in any direction. Whatever. Jennifer’s Body drips sarcasm as often
as it flings blood, and it’s a great reversal on the standard Male Monster
Hunting Helpless Female Victims trope.
I
almost feel sorry for Megan Fox. I’ve seen her act in some smaller, art-house
movies, and you know what? She’s got pretty good acting chops. It only she
could have kept her mouth shut, and her prima donna attitude in check, about
those Transformer movies. Oh, well.
It’s probably because she needed the money that she agreed to star in this
wonderful flawed masterpiece.
Fox may have been typecast as
Jennifer, the cheerleader who is sacrificed to a demon in the woods and walks
out of it as a succubus, but she makes the most of the role, both in physical
sexuality and a kind of ravenous promiscuity that does not end well for the
guys, ever. Amanda
Seyfried plays the ugly duckling to Fox’s swan as best, if unlikely, friends in
high school. When Seyfried says to her, “You’re
killing people,” Fox’s reply is, “No, I’m killing boys.” It’s nice
to be on the other end of the objectification stick for once. Side note: only
in Hollywood would Amanda Seyfried be cast as a wallflower. It’s like they’re not
even really trying.
Diablo Cody’s screenplay is
razor-sharp and rooted in pop culture references and witty dialogue, the very
thing that made Juno work. I think
this kind of humor translates well into the horror genre. There are also a ton
of cameos by great character actors to fill out the minutes between the time
that Seyfried and Fox exploitatively make out onscreen.
If you don’t like black comedy, and
if the very sight of Megan Fox is anathema to you, feel free to give this one a
pass. For the rest of you, give this one another look. It’s a darker, more
sinister Heathers for the Millennial generation.
3. Slither (2006)
James Gunn’s biggest movie prior
to Guardians of the Galaxy was this gross-fest he wrote and
directed, set in a small southern town and starring Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth
Banks, Michael Rooker, Gregg Henry, and several other character actors who end
up playing rednecks in movies set in small southern towns.
Gunn, a Troma films alumnus, knows
what we want, and he’s smart enough to recognize the absurdity of things coming
out of downed meteorites that mutate humans and turn them into breeding pods
for mind-controlling blood slugs that infect other humans and turn them into
hive-mind zombies that spit digestive acid. There’s a lot going on in Slither,
y’all. And thankfully, the cast is fast with the quips and the really quotable
one-liners. Fillion is his usual likeable self, as is Banks, who is very
comfortable with the B-Movie subject matter.
There are a few jump scares,
naturally, but it’s the creep-out factor that’s cranked up to eleven. The
implications of what the monsters can do to the human body makes you go
“blargh” and if you don’t like films where the people have no control, then
this one is going to bother you more than somewhat. Add to that a lot of
phallic, intrusive, violating kinds of imagery, and you may need to ask someone
to tell you when the gross parts are over so you can go back to watching the
movie.
What saves the film is the bevy of
local rednecks, spouting aphorisms, platitudes, and cutting through the
unbelievable creepiness to deliver certain in-the-moment truths. Gunn’s Slither takes
itself seriously, but it’s the reactions of the characters that allow us to
laugh, even if it’s just a tension breaker.
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2. Vamp (1986)
What do Long Duck Dong from Sixteen
Candles, Rudy from Meatballs, and the other dickhead bully that
wasn’t Robert Downey, Jr. from Weird Science have in common?
They all starred in Vamp, a quirky little vampire story that wears
its 80’s-ness like an ill-fitting pair of parachute pants. Based on its
premise, there’s no way it could be made today. It’s a carbon-dated artifact,
and that makes it a little more amusing in the re-watching.
Two frat house pledges have to
procure a stripper for the big frat party, and so they travel, with the help
(and borrowed car) of the campus rich nerd, to the Big City, where they find
themselves in the Bad Part of Town, at this strip club called the After Sundown
Club. I’m positive you can pick up the narrative cues from here.
There are some wonderfully weird
moments, such as anytime Grace Jones is onscreen. Her initial transformation
and feeding scene is gross, creepy, and really freaked me out when I first saw
it. The guys run afoul of some local freaks early on, and they become a
secondary source of tension as the gang separates and tries to get back
together again and just survive the night.
The script holds up, again, in that
80s banter, quip a minute kind of way. And the guys are smart, and stay smart,
even as they are making bad choices. I would not go so far as to call this a
cult classic, but I think it’s an under-watched and under-appreciated film,
precisely because it looks scary and ends up being pretty funny.
1. The Frighteners (1996)
It’s always fun remembering that
Peter Jackson was considered a horror director for ten years before anyone
slapped rubber feet on Elijah Wood and called him a hobbit. The Frighteners is,
I think, one of Jackson’s best movies; a fully-realized world with several
layers of story that unravel as the movie progresses, and it delivers some
great laughs as well as disturbing, creepy images that really do stick with you
afterward.
Jackson assembled an all-star cast
for the movie, including Michael J. Fox as the guy who walks away from an
automobile accident with the power to see ghosts and talk to them. This is how
he now makes his living, actually working with two spirits that help him to
solve these otherworldly exterminator problems. And that’s just the tip of the
iceberg. Old hands like John Aston get to play bit parts, and cult-favorite
actors like Jeffrey Combs get to chew the scenery in these bizarro character
parts that you have to see to believe. Jake Busey makes a great psychopath,
too, from the second he appears onscreen.
The story is pretty rich in detail,
but not too complicated. There’s a lot going on in the movie and that’s part of
what makes it such a satisfying film to watch. Weta Workshop turned
in a bunch of special effects for the film, some of them still a little clunky
by modern standards, but don’t let that throw you out of the movie.
Emotionally-speaking, the plot is equal parts Ghostbusters and Hell
House, so strap yourself in for a unique movie that feels at times like
other things, but ultimately is its own story, and moreover, indelibly stamped in
Jackson’s signature kinetic cinematic style.
This is one small part of a much larger series of articles, the entirety of which are listed below. Enjoy!
My Top 5 Monsters on the Loose Movies
My Top 5 When Animals Attack Movies
My Top 5 Mummy Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Frankenstein Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Creatures from the Deep Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Killer Doll Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Horror Anthology movies
My Top 5 Favorite Dracula Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Lovecraftian Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Haunted House Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Movie Maniac Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Killer/Creepy Kid Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Devils and Demons Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Ghost Story Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Monster From Space Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Zombie Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Vampire Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Werewolf Movies
