Editorials
10 Amazing Horror Comedies!!!
Horror Comedies are by far the most difficult horror sub-genre to execute. They’re also the most likely to fail commercially. While they’re one of my favorite sub genres and I wish there were more of them, when you combine those factors it’s a miracle there aren’t even less.
And many of them are quite great! So much so that I had to strip all numbers and rankings out of this list. While I certainly like some more than others, when you get down to stuff like Gremlins and An American Werewolf In London you’re dealing with grade A classics to which assigning a number would be an insult.
Also, please note that while I love The Cabin In The Woods and Scream, I don’t consider them “comedies.” They’re both intentionally funny, but I feel like their laughs exist to provoke a very specific conversation about horror tropes, which is its own thing.
So, in no particular order, head inside for my Top 10 Horror Comedies!
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON
One of the very first horror comedies is also one of the very best. I’ve written an endless amount of words regarding this film on this site for a fairly clear reason. It’s one of my favorite movies. Ever. It never sacrifices character, or scares, for comedy. And yet there are plenty of laughs to be had.
GHOSTBUSTERS
One of the reasons I’m not looking forward to Ghostbusters 3 (should it happen) is how quickly the downward trajectory for this series set in. Not only is Ghostbusters 2 not as good as Ghostbusters, the second hour of Ghostbusters isn’t even as good as its first! Don’t get me wrong, we’re still talking about an altogether exceptional film. A classic, even. But very few movies truly sing like the first half of this film.
GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH
A sequel so bonkers I’m still in shock that it even exists. I mean, I get that Warner Bros. told Joe Dante he could do whatever he wanted as long as it was a Gremlins movie, but I doubt this is what they had in mind. I’m glad that this has emerged from history as something of a classic that rivals the original in quality.
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
Another film I’ve written quite a lot about. Dan O’Bannon truly made a punk rock masterpiece with this one. An incredibly bold film that came at a time when American zombie films were nothing if not dour. Also, James Karen, Thom Mathews, Don Calfa and Clu Gulager turn in delightful perforamances.
ZOMBIELAND
This isn’t necessarily the funniest movie on this list for me. Its humor is fairly broad, so the amount of times I laugh at it probably decreases with each viewing. But there’s an interesting trade-off there; while I may laugh less at the film now, I find it no less entertaining. It’s a clever, fun time that whizzes by in 81 minutes and remains Ruben Fleischer’s best film to date.
NIGHT OF THE COMET
Running out of gas near the end, Night Of The Comet has a shelf life that’s slightly shorter than the film itself. But its joyous depiction of how Valley Girls might handle the apocalypse has always stayed with me. I also find the opening mother/daughter fist fight particularly entertaining.
SLITHER
God, I love James Gunn’s Slither. If movies were judged by the metric of how much fun they are to show to people who haven’t seen them before, its legacy would be up there with Citizen Kane. Elizabeth Bank’s willingness to make things work with Grant Grant, even in the midst of a horrific transformation, are worth a watch alone.
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
What can I say about Shaun Of The Dead that I haven’t said before? And when I said that sh*t before, was I really saying anything that hadn’t been said before by someone else? No. It’s a masterpiece. Great characters, nuanced direction, laughs, tears, gore and a script you could bounce a quarter off of. Indespensable.
GREMLINS
Another classic. It’s such a well rounded movie that I almost left it off this list, so perfect is its balance of everything Amblin embodied in the early 1980’s. Still, its got a little bit of a mean streak and is more or less hilarious. It’s also a nearly perfect film (if not an absolutely perfect film), hence its inclusion.
EVIL DEAD 2
Because how could it not be on here? You’ve ALL seen it, how would you describe it?
Honorary mentions go to Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil, Jennifer’s Body, Dead Alive, The Frighteners and Critters (the latter of which I haven’t seen in forever and may have aged badly).
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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