20 Films That Prove The 1990s Was The Worst Decade For Horror

This 1992 movie provides further evidence of what a sorry state the slasher subgenre was in by the early 90s, prior to its renaissance post-Scream. As passing amusements go, Dr Giggles is hardly the worst of its kind, but it doesn't come close to measuring up to the slashers that came before it.

The late Larry Drake is well cast in the title role as a deranged would-be surgeon, son of a mass-murdering doctor, who escapes his mental institute and heads back home to continue his father's work. Holly Marie Combs (who would later find fame on TV's Charmed) heads up the bunch of disposable teens who fall in the bad doctor's path.

It's a peculiar mix of black comedy and outright nastiness (there are admittedly a few eye-opening gore gags) that never gels, and doesn't take long to fall back on predictable tropes and plot developments.

While Drake is an engaging enough antagonist, his constant spouting of Christmas cracker doctor jokes gets tedious very quickly; meanwhile, the none-more-cliche teen ensemble (would you believe, both the black kids die first) is nigh-on impossible to care about.