Editorials
Funny Terror: 6 Criminally Underseen Horror-Comedies
I believe it takes a well-developed sense of humor to be a horror fan. After all, none of us would be able to sleep if we actually thought that Freddy Krueger could show up in our dreams at night – and yet we always play along when the time comes to enjoy spooky stories about supernatural killers and mutated monsters.
That’s why the rise of horror comedies was all but inevitable, as most horror hounds were already willing to laugh alongside their favorite filmmakers instead of at them. That being said, some of these humorous scares are more popular than others, and today we’d like to shine a light on six criminally underseen horror-comedies that deserve a second chance at success!
As usual, this list is based on personal opinion, but don’t forget to comment below with your own underrated favorites if you think we missed a particularly fun horror comedy that doesn’t get the love it deserves.
With that out of the way, onto the list…
6. Grabbers (2012)
After the massive success of John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place, the horror genre was inundated with a whole slew of rules-based monster movies where our protagonists had to refrain from some sort of activity in order to survive. Jon Wright’s Grabbers may have preceded this movement by several years, but I’d still argue that this Irish creature-feature is somehow one of the best examples of it.
More than a little inspired by Tremors, Grabbers follows the residents of a small island community who find themselves under siege by man-eating aliens. The invaders’ only weakness appears to be an extreme aversion to alcohol, meaning that our heroes must avoid sobriety in order to survive! What follows is one of the zaniest flicks on this list, and one that’s worth tracking down if you still haven’t seen it.
5. Little Monsters (2019)
Zom-Coms have become so prolific that they’re basically a sub-genre in and of themselves at this point. That’s why it takes a particularly charming feature to stand out among the countless Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland wannabes that populate most streaming sites. Thankfully, Abe Forsythe’s Little Monsters is precisely that, following a down-on-his-luck musician who develops feelings for his nephew’s kindergarten teacher and volunteers to chaperone on a field trip. Unfortunately, the trip coincides with a zombie outbreak, leading to a hilarious scramble for survival as the adults attempt to convince the children that everything is fine.
Benefiting from genuinely touching moments and a lovable performance by Lupita Nyong’o, Little Monsters is a must-see even if you’re burned out on zombie comedies. The only downside is that you’ll likely walk out of the experience with either Sweet Caroline or Shake It Off stuck in your head for the foreseeable future.
4. Detention (2011)
Josh Hutcherson needs to be in more horror flicks. However, while I routinely defend the Five Nights at Freddy’s adaptation as a surprisingly fun B-movie, 2011’s Detention remains the actor’s best genre work, taking audiences on a chaotic thrill ride involving time travel, serial killers and the horrors of adolescence.
While the film has developed something of a cult following over the years, it’s still nowhere near as popular as it deserves to be (likely because it was released years before the streaming boom that gave similar features a chance at success). That’s why Detention earns a place on this list, as I’d like to live in a world where lines like “Just because you’re a bitch it doesn’t give you dog years,” are commonly quoted by genre fans.
3. Black Sheep (2006)
From Dead-Alive to What We Do in the Shadows, New Zealand has a history of providing horror fans with some of the funniest subversions of genre tropes ever put to screen. And while Black Sheep isn’t as popular as these aforementioned examples, it’s no less entertaining.
Following an outbreak of carnivorous sheep created by genetic tampering, this surprisingly vicious take on infection horror will have you laughing and recoiling in terror in equal measure – which is why I still have my fingers crossed for a sequel nearly two decades later.
2. Murder Party (2007)
Director Jeremy Saulnier is mostly known for hyper-serious thrillers like Green Room and Rebel Ridge, but this modern-day master of suspense actually began his career with a satirical horror comedy about a Halloween Party gone terribly wrong. Produced on a shoestring budget, Murder Party stars Saulnier’s childhood friend and fellow filmmaker Macon Blair as a loner who gets himself kidnapped by murderous art students.
From its plethora of loving homages to genre cinema (the characters’ creative costumes are definitely a highlight) to the genuinely freaky moments where Blair agonizes over his inevitable fate at the hands of these radical artists, there’s a lot to love about Murder Party if you can stomach its low production value and some iffy pacing.
1. I Sell the Dead (2008)
The (mostly) obsolete profession of graverobbing is criminally underexplored in the world of horror. Glenn McQuaid’s charming I Sell the Dead remains one of few exceptions, starring Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden as a mismatched duo of corpse salesmen who accidentally discover a more bizarre -not to mention lucrative- side to their line of work.
Stylish, hilarious and more than a little disgusting, McQuaid’s debut feature may not have seen much box office action outside of the festival circuit – and it released way too soon to become a streaming hit – but there’s a reason why this movie has steadily been finding more fans online as more folks connect with its unique brand of gallows humor.
The penultimate season of Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) aired its first three episodes on October 31, so it’s understandable that at least one of those three stories is set on Halloween.
Sandwiched between “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (Russell Mulcahy, Ron Finley) and “Whirlpool” (Mick Garris, A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler) is the most severe episode of the bunch. Maybe the entire series? William Malone and Dick Beebe’s “Only Skin Deep” traded the show’s typical sense of fun for startling amounts of bleakness and kink.
“Only Skin Deep” is, apart from the Crypt Keeper’s intro and outro, noticeably unfunny. There are no considerable attempts at making the viewer laugh. Come to think of it, if those bookends had been replaced, and there was more of a sci-fi element in the story, HBO could have easily squeezed this tale into that successor anthology, Perversions of Science (1997). In Crypt, though, “Only Skin Deep” is much too grim for an audience that had become accustomed to campiness and levity.
What makes “Only Skin Deep” feel dark, among other things, is its protagonist. Showing up to a Halloween party where he’s not welcome, and where his former girlfriend (Diane DiLasco) is attending, Carl Schlag (Peter Onorati) first comes across as your standard bitter ex. You soon realize it’s much worse than that, once Carl threatens Linda (“You know, silly me, thinking I gave you what you deserved. If I’d have done that, I’d have killed you”). Now, I haven’t forgotten that Tales from the Crypt was teeming with vile men who did women harm. Yet Carl’s brand of misogynistic menace hits differently—it borders on being too realistic for this kind of series.
Mike Vosburg’s EC-style comic cover for “Only Skin Deep”, as seen in the Tales from the Crypt episode.
Despite donning a party mask for much of the episode, Carl can’t ever mask his true nature. The invitation did say “come as you are”, after all. That inability to change and be better, however, is why Carl ends up in such a karmic predicament. His outburst of anger at the party attracts the attention of one loner partygoer named Molly (Sherrie Rose, who was also in Season Four’s “On a Deadman’s Chest”). Her bone-white, featureless “mask” and body-bag costume don’t initially register as too strange, especially on a night like this. But at a party chock-full of colorful, cartoonish, and lighthearted ensembles, it does look out of place.
Darkness attracts darkness as Carl ditches the party and accompanies the mysterious Molly to her place. Which, by the way, should have been an immediate red flag. But perhaps she’s so hot, he doesn’t seem to mind the serial killer aesthetic. Resembling a warehouse that has been converted into living spaces, but never then decorated to remove the cold, industrial look, Molly’s home (or lair) is as gloomy as this whole episode feels. It’s like the set of a grungy music video, albeit a tad cleaner. The environments in a typical Crypt episode tend to be small, overfilled, and broken-in. Warm, regardless of any weird goings-on. All that empty space in Molly’s hovel, on the other hand, elicits a creepy feeling that Carl was unwise to ignore.
Tales from the Crypt featured more sex than it didn’t, but hands down, “Only Skin Deep” boasts the steamiest scene in the show’s history. Pushing it over the line, in addition to Onorati showing bare buns and the camera never turning down one of his pelvic thrusts, is the twisted dirty talk. Carl stays in the moment, whereas Molly unleashes charged lines like “the hurt, the anger, give it to me” and “take it out on my flesh like you want to”. It’s all quite kinky, as well as tied into the story’s theme of pain.
How else “Only Skin Deep” differs from other episodes is its twists. Or rather, its lack thereof. Nothing comes as a great surprise here, particularly because the deuteragonist’s ulterior motives are so obvious. By no means is Molly a wolf in sheep’s clothing; her face is a fright mask, she practically reeks of death, and she lives in what can best be described as a serial killer’s hideout. That last-act revelation of Molly’s mask really being her face is also nothing shocking. Cleverness is certainly not this episode’s strength.
A page from “…Only Skin Deep!”, as seen in EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt.
While “Only Skin Deep” isn’t the most universally loved episode of Tales from the Crypt, it’s an interesting preview of William Malone’s future as a director. Most notably, he went on to helm House on Haunted Hill (1999) and FeardotCom (2002), the former of which was co-written by Dick Beebe, this episode’s writer. Dark Castle Entertainment, that genre house founded by Crypt producers Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gilbert Adler, was instrumental in bringing out Malone’s gruesome, over-the-top vision in House on Haunted Hill. However, FeardotCom and Malone’s Masters of Horror episode, “Fair-Haired Child”, are the most stylistically compatible with “Only Skin Deep”.
As one might guess, this episode is nothing like its source material. The “…Only Skin Deep!” found in the pages of EC Comics is set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and save for its last couple of pages, is pretty sweet in nature. There, a man named Herbert is enamored with a woman he met five years prior to the present-day story. Every year, he has come down to Mardi Gras to see Suzanne, who’s always dressed as a hag-faced witch. Well, this time, Herbert plans on popping the question and marrying someone who is, for the most part, a total stranger. Suzanne accepts his proposal, but with one condition: they stay in costume until they’re officially hitched. You can probably see where this is going…
Once they are married, Suzanne remains incognito, even when she and Herbert have consummated their vows. A semi-predictive nightmare then rattles Herbert; he dreamt that Suzanne’s real face was as wizened as her mask. Finally, in his haste to find out the truth, Herbert winds up killing his new wife. Faceless and well on her way to bleeding out, the dying Suzanne manages to say she never wore a mask.
For more traditional EC-style ghastliness, your best bet is reading the comic. It’s wickedly sad. For something less conventional, as far as Tales from the Crypt goes, the role-reversing adaptation is worth watching. It’s not the best this show had to offer, although Malone’s visual style, plus the sexual abandon, does set the episode apart. If nothing else, “Only Skin Deep” leaves an impression that, even years later, shows no signs of fading.
Season Six of Tales from the Crypt can be streamed on Shudder, starting on June 5.
Tales from Tales from the Crypt celebrates the show’s Shudder premiere by singling out one episode from each season. So don’t even think about changing that dial, boys and ghouls. More spot-“frights” are to come.
Carl discovers Molly’s collection of human ‘masks’ in the Tales from the Crypt episode, “Only Skin Deep”.
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