When compiling my own Top 10 Horror list for
OWFs 31 Days of Horror, I noticed that a big majority of my choices had some comedic value in them. Horror and comedy have made for fairly comfortable bedfellows; both invoke an involuntary gut reaction, be it fear or laughter, and both are nominally filed under the cult section (presumably as something so popular could never approach high-art). Plus, there is something inherently funny about horror as a genre. The process of being scared is often laughably entertaining (well, I chuckled all the way through Saw 3). And throughout its history, horror has been the domain of lo-to-no-budget filmmakers who have experimented with often hilariously terrible special effects as they find their directorial feet - hence the inclusion in this list of two early
Peter Jackson movies. So I present to you my Top 10 Horror-Comedies. Some are more intentionally funny than others, but all are essentially horror films that made me laugh when I watched them. As with all the other top 10 lists during our 31 Days of Horror (or indeed any top 10 list of this nature), it is far from exhaustive - so let us know what you think should or should not have been included in the comments below. Here we go...
10. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)
A great slice of knowingly rubbish B-movie fun,
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes tells you everything you need to know about it from its courageously bonkers title. Things dont get any less bizarre when you start watching, whether the blood on a murder victim turns out to be tomato juice, characters spontaneously bursting into song, or (spoiler alert!) the film closing on a giant carrot. Incredibly, the franchise has spawned three sequels, a cartoon adaptation, video games, a novel and a comic book.
9. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)
One of two appearances on this list for cult hero
Bruce the chin Campbell, this is a charmingly funny offbeat oddity from horror director
Don Cascerelli. The crazily high-concept premise - an aging Elvis Presley and a black man claiming to be JFK do battle with an Egyptian mummy in an old peoples home - works surprisingly well, getting by with warm humour and superb performances. Despite a tiny $1million budget it has found a healthy audience on DVD. Worth a look.
8. Bad Taste (1987)
Audiences watching
Bad Taste back in 87 could be forgiven for not thinking they were witnessing the birth of one of cinemas great talents, and the future director of a multi-billion dollar epic fantasy trilogy. Yet this is is the strange reality of
Peter Jacksons inauspicious early career, which began with this endearingly crap low-budget debut, filmed over four years on weekends. The acting (from Jacksons friends, and sometimes Jackson himself) is terrible, and the special effects cheap and nasty, but the result is consistently hilarious, and the title roundly lives up to its name.
7. Black Sheep (2007)
If this list is anything to go by, New Zealand has the horror-comedy market sewn up. This recent entry is the debut feature from
Jonathan King and manages to be consistently hilarious whilst achieving the not-to-be-scoffed-at feat of making a herd of sheep seem absolutely terrifying. The zombies-in-a-farm concept is has just enough steam to keep it amusing, and some moderately dodgy effects from the famous Weta workshops tick all the boxes. Some rather nice jokes as well: it seems the zombie sheeps kryptonite is mint sauce.
6. Re-Animator (1985)
This sly and often quite mad modern retelling of the Frankenstein story is largely forgotten among most cult favourites, although
Kevin Spacey namechecking it in
American Beauty may have sparked a recent re-interest. An adaptation of
H. P. Lovecrafts short story, which itself was a contemporary parody of Mary Shelleys original story, it has an underlying current of dry humour amidst the stock eighties gore effects.
Jeffrey Combs deadpan eccentric central performance is still hilarious, with lines like whos going to listen to a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow.
5. Braindead (1992)
Peter Jacksons third film is a somewhat more accomplished affair than his first: he finally has an actual budget, a special effects team and real actors, and boy, does he go to town. Apparently still holding the movie record the most amount of fake blood used in one film,
Braindead remains ultimate splatter-horror-comedy, an exercise in cartoonish gore.
Timothy Balme hams it up perfectly as the Bruce Campbell-esque lead, and the epic lawnmower finale will linger in your memory for a long time.
4. Ghost Busters (1984)
Does it even need to be explained to you? For anyone whos had even the slightest brush with cinema in the last thirty years, the phenomenon of
Ghost Busters should be ingrained into your DNA somehow - the jumpsuits, the marshmallow man,
Ray Parker Jr.s unendingly enduring theme,
Bill Murray... Its not quite a straight-up horror, hence it is not higher placed. But there never was a better-loved fan favourite.
3. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
A much-loved modern cult classic from geek heroes
Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and
Nick Frost, it suggested a spoofy parody with its play-on-words of Romeros Dawn of the Dead. But, as the terrific tagline noted, this is a rom-zom-com, an affectionate tribute to the zombie movies of yesteryear in the form of a charming romantic comedy. The Spaced teams first foray into cinema gets a bit too serious in the third act but it remains a true original, a love letter to genre cinema, made for movie lovers by movie lovers.
2. Evil Dead II (1987)
Sam Raimis sort of sequel, sort of remake is easily the best of the
Evil Dead trilogy, and one of the greatest of all modern horrors. Even those who thought the tree-rape scene went a little far must admit that a master is at work here. As his recent return to the genre (the sublime Drag Me To Hell) demonstrates, Raimi was born to do horror, though his tongue is always firmly in his cheek. And
Bruce Campbell has never been better. It has deserving and lasting popularity; few geeks the world over cannot feel a tingle down the spine as Campbell dons the hand-chainsaw and delivers his signature line: Groovy!
1. American Werewolf in London (1981)
The ultimate horror-comedy, and a grand lesson in balancing the two masterfully. The studio were apparently unable to conceive how two seemingly opposing practices could be reconciled. With
John Landis at the helm, they neednt have worried: from the hilarious observations of English sensibilities to
Rick Bakers utterly stunning - and still convincing - make up effects, all the ingredients are present. Inevitably, with Hollywood being the way it is now, a pointless and unnecessary remake is reportedly in the works. Lets pretend that that, and the non-Landis sequel in Paris, never existed, and enjoy the original for the classic it is.