10 Hilarious Horror Films That Weren't Supposed To Be Funny

Horror has always flirted with humour, but when horror films go wrong, nothing’s funnier. You sit there with your popcorn and your enthusiasm, waiting to be scared, then as the monster in the the silly rubber suit (with the zipper clearly visible) appears to menace a Playmate of the Month everyone explodes with laughter.

The idea that someone would set out to make a serious film featuring centrefolds and rubber monsters is itself amusing, but watching their efforts with a receptive crowd is even better. “Bad” horror films are usually more fun than their “prestigious” counterparts and boy do they give the crowd something to talk about afterwards. Anyone who’s ever attended a midnight screening of Troll 2 knows what I’m talking about.

For every picture like It Follows or The Babadook, your local multiplex will show a half-dozen would-be shockers so inept that the audience screams only with laughter. They’re not necessarily terrible films, just misunderstood masterpieces that have a shot at becoming camp classics (as well as appearing on Mystery Science Theatre 3000).

Films like the following, in fact.

Saw 3D begins the way most movies do, with two alpha males being forced into combat by a tricycle-riding puppet. Vying for the same woman in a buzzsaw duel, they eventually decide that she’s a cheap slut and not worth the effort, so they allow her to be torn in half instead.

Filled with hilariously overdone violence and gore, this final (?) instalment is a laugh riot from start to finish. A woman throws her abusive husband into a fan and tells her support group, “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” A cop is pulverized by multiple high-calibre rounds and his partner, on the end of the line, asks, “Are you still there?”

Even in its quieter moments, the movie continues to amuse, such as when a victim with a prosthetic limb says, “You know what the best thing about having to cut off your own arm is? The parking at the damn mall!”