10 Screamingly Funny Horror Films (That Weren't Supposed To Be Comedies)

Scream for your lives.

One Missed Call
wikipedia

Brace yourselves, for this may come as a surprise, but movies like Amityville Dollhouse and Lake Placid Vs Anaconda were never meant to be any good at all. The best we could hope was for were a few unintentional laughs, but alas, the films were only slightly less dispiriting than watching a Presidential debate.

When journeymen filmmakers don’t care, the results are usually flat and lifeless, but when they approach the material with passion, their efforts can wind up in the cult film category. The most obvious example is Ed Wood, a painfully amateurish filmmaker who gave his all to Bride Of The Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space. He just didn’t have much all.

Ed’s films may be barely coherent, full of technical gaffes and acted by voodoo zombies, but they certainly give you plenty to talk about afterwards. You can discuss how often the sets moved, or count the number of times characters arrived in broad daylight only for the next shot to take place after dark.

In short, they’re more entertaining (and more memorable) than most “good” horror movies, and ought to be celebrated in this era of cheerless technical proficiency. Better a movie that aims high and falls laughably short than a piece of anonymous content with a numeral in the title.

10. Ax Em

Shot on a camcorder for $650, and described by critic Michael Adams as “the sh*ttiest movie I’ve ever seen”, Ax Em is a slasher movie from an African-American filmmaker whose father headed the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, which means it takes a dim view of the treatment of ethnic minorities in horror movies, right, gang?

No such luck – writer/director/producer/actor Michael Mfume sticks to every cliché and caricature possible, from gangsta rappers who have Yo Mamma fights to playas whose idea of a come on is, “You so fine ah could kiss yo daddy’s ass.” If you gave a camera to a 12-year-old boy and told him to make an ‘urban’ horror film, this is the movie he’d make.

For the first half of the picture nothing much happens, then suddenly a zombie with a machete appears and the uniformly terrible cast begin overacting wildly, literally unable to show their terror without running into walls and each other. Unreleased for a decade, the movie premiered in Washington DC in 2002 – to an audience of understandably perplexed NAACP employees.

In this post: 
Horror
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'