Editorials
10 Overlooked Modern Horror Comedies
There’s perhaps no two genres more closely aligned than horror and comedy. Both serve the purpose of eliciting a physical response from the viewer, and both rely on a rhythm, or precise timing to land their intended gags. Horror often uses humor as levity to punctuate long stretches of tension or scares, giving the viewer a moment to catch their breath before ramping up the suspense again. So, it’s no surprise that the horror-comedy mashup makes for some of the most fun horror movies.
Celebrated films like Cabin in the Woods, Slither, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Shaun of the Dead, Evil Dead II, and more have become tried and true crowd pleasers that even non-horror fans tend to love. But for those looking for something new or different, there’s a lot more horror-comedies out there that are worth seeking out.
Here are 10 modern horror-comedies that are deserving of more love…
I Sell the Dead
Harkening back to the gothic horror of Universal Studios horror films of the ‘20s and ‘30s, this period horror-comedy follows a grave robber as he recounts his story of crime from prison to a Father (Ron Perlman) as he awaits his execution. The grave robber, Arthur (Dominic Monaghan), tells of his partnership with Willie Grimes (Larry Fessenden) as they turn a profit robbing graves and contend with blackmail by Doctor Quint (Angus Scrimm), before unwittingly digging up the undead. Vampires, aliens, ghouls, and rival grave robbers all contribute to Arthur’s current predicament with often humorous results. Glenn McQuaid’s first outing as director isn’t perfect – Arthur’s story drags on its own – but anytime Fessenden is on screen I Sell the Dead really shines.
Dead & Breakfast
If you prefer your horror-comedies heavy on the splatstick side with a musical number interlude, this one is for you. Following a group of friends road-tripping to Galveston, TX for a wedding who then wind up lost in the town of Lovelock where a murder results in them being caught up in the investigation. When one of the friends opens a mysterious box belonging to the deceased owner of the bed and breakfast, it sets a demon loose that begins possessing and slaughtering everyone around. Think Evil Dead II meets the honky tonk charm of the small town south. Gory, silly, and featuring many actors on the rise; Jeremy Sisto (May), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Walking Dead), and Oz Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter) round out a surprising cast of recognizable faces in this underseen film.
Witching & Bitching
Otherwise known as Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi, or The Witches of Zugarramurdi, this Spanish horror comedy by Alex de la Iglesia starts out with a bang, involving a pawn shop robbery by robbers disguised as street performers (think Jesus and Sponge Bob). On the run from the police, the robbers head for the border and stumble into the secluded town of Zugarramurdi. The encounters with the town’s inhabitants, a large coven of witches, grows increasingly bizarre. This is a dark, over the top horror comedy that leans heavily into gross-out humor. Though subtitled, Witching & Bitching is easily of the most accessible of de la Iglesia’s work, whose dark humor often falls more toward the bleak. Gory and irreverent, this zany comedy is a crowd pleaser.
Bad Milo!
Duncan (Ken Marino) deals with constant stress in his life, to the point where it manifests in his intestinal tract as a demon. A demon that crawls out of his butt and literally kills Duncan’s sources of stress. That’s correct. A butt demon. That Duncan winds up bonding with and naming Milo. Who knew a butt demon could be so gosh darn cute? Somehow, writers Benjamin Hayes and Jacob Vaughan, and the talented cast, manage to take an over-the-top premise and turn it into something so horrifically endearing. As if the comedic relationship between Duncan and his butt demon isn’t enough, the supporting cast is equally great, especially Peter Stormare as Duncan’s therapist. A creature feature in the distant vein of Gremlins should be more popular than it is.
Wolfcop
This goofy Canadian indie gem about an alcoholic cop, Lou Garou (get it? Ha.), who gets turned into a werewolf is every bit as irreverent and silly as it sounds. Written and directed by Lowell Dean, this werewolf horror comedy is as much of a love letter to Canada as it is to werewolves. It’s the perfect B-movie to watch with friends, and if a drunk werewolf isn’t enough to sell you, then scene-stealer Willie Higgins (Jonathan Cherry) is worth the watch alone. The even better sequel, Another Wolfcop, is finally arriving on Blu-ray in July, which makes now a perfect time to get introduced to Lou and his straight-edged partner Tina (Amy Matysio).
The Final Girls
Perhaps because it’s far heavier on the comedy than the horror, or not as self-mocking as horror-comedies like The Cabin in the Woods, The Final Girls seems to be far more overlooked than it should be. An accurate and loving break down of slasher tropes, Max Cartwright and her friends get sucked into the retro slasher Camp Bloodbath when a fire breaks out at the theater playing the film. Max and her friends must pass themselves off as new counselors and steer clear of machete-wielding maniac Billy Murphy to survive to the end credits. The only problem is that Max is now confronted with the character Nancy, the scream queen her deceased mother was known for playing. While humorously deconstructing the slasher tropes, The Final Girls also succeeds in doing what most slashers can’t- getting the viewer to care about its characters. This one pulls on the heartstrings.
Fido
Set in a 1950s alternate universe where space radiation has reanimated the dead, a company has created technology that neutralizes the zombie by way of a domestication collar. Therefore, most zombies have become household servants. When housewife Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) buys a zombie despite her husband’s phobia, the neighborhood starts to unravel when that zombie, Fido (Billy Connolly), breaks his neutralizing collar. This gory zombie comedy borrows heavily from the likes of Lassie Come Home, The Night of the Hunter, and of course, George A. Romero’s zombie films. A small Canadian production followed by a very quiet release in 2007 meant that despite being well-received by critics, Fido was mostly slept on.
The Voices
On the surface, The Voices seems like a quirky sort of rom-com, with Ryan Reynolds as Jerry Hickfang, a socially awkward factory worker living alone with his dog and cat, and searching for love. Jerry is more than just awkward, though, he’s schizophrenic, and he chooses to stop taking his medication. This then means that his delusions take over, especially in the case of his pets. His dog Bosco is a good dog, representing Jerry’s pure nature, whereas evil Mr. Whiskers appeals to Jerry’s dark side. When Jerry’s unrequited work crush stands him up, his delusions get deadly. The way Jerry deals with his victims is surprisingly gruesome. This horror comedy is the darkest of dark, and sadly far less seen than it should be.
The Editor
While almost anything by Astron-6 would certainly apply to this list, like Father’s Day or Manborg, The Editor is so very niche in its humor that it’s no surprise it’s not often brought up in conversations about horror-comedies. Written and directed by Adam Brooks and Matthew Kennedy, with additional writing credits by Conor Sweeney, The Editor lovingly and humorously pokes fun of giallo films. Brooks stars as Rey Ciso, a film editor who gets caught up in a string of murders while working on a director’s latest giallo film. Using the same cinematic language and tropes employed in classic gialli, The Editor pays homage to numerous films from the 1960s to the 1980s; Deep Red, Torso, A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Black Belly of the Tarantula, and dozens more.
Attack the Block
This sci-fi horror comedy has it all: jokes that stick their landing, endearing leads, action, suspense, and above all, amazing creature design. After a nurse in training is mugged by a gang of street teens, she’s then forced to team up with them to defend their block from an alien invasion. Starring Doctor Who’s Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, as the nurse, and John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) in his breakout role as gang leader Moses, Attack the Block is pure heart and vicious bioluminescent alien teeth. U.S. Distributors were concerned American audiences would struggle to cope with the street gang’s slang and their thick South London accents, and the U.S. release was limited. Attack the Block offers style and substance, and while it’s lighter on the scares, the creature effects make up for it. It’s the type of film you wish got a sequel.
Editorials
Five Serial Killer Horror Movies to Watch Before ‘Longlegs’
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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