Comedy can be a mighty tasty horror-movie condiment, in the hands of the right chef. It can relieve tension, provide mood contrast, lull the audience into a false sense of security before the BOO!
Slather it on generously enough, and you’ve got a comic horror movie. Make it the main course and, bon appetit, it’s a horror comedy. (Fear not, I’m not going to take tweezers to these movies and pick apart the difference. It’s not like there’s going to be a test later.)
The two must-see horror comedies are “Shaun of the Dead” (2004) and “Young Frankenstein” (1974). These campy versions of George Romero zombie movies — yep, I used the zed-word — and the Frankenstein story, respectively, are fall-down funny and so packed with sly jokes that you need to watch them a few times to fully enjoy them.
Can’t talk about horror camp without “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The soundtrack of this 1975 cult classic never gets old. A remake is in the works, thanks (or no thanks) to MTV, but I can’t imagine anyone other than Tim Curry as Dr. Frank N Furter.
Lesser-known horror comedies you might not have seen but I think are worth checking out are “Bubba Ho-Tep” (2003); “Fido” (2006); “Save the Green Planet!” (2003, South Korean with English subtitles); and “Series 7: The Contenders (2001). I thought “Black Sheep” (2007) was okay — and I am talking about the New Zealand killer-sheep movie, not the Chris Farley/David Spade film of the same name.
The more-usual suspects I like include “Mars Attacks!,” “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “The Lost Boys,” “Fright Night,” “Tremors” and “Brainscan.
And I am woman enough to admit that I liked “Scream.” I thought it was a clever jab at the slasher subgenre, backed by a credible story, but apparently lots of people thought it was silly or at least overdone. I can also imagine some people thinking, “More horror, less chick flick.”
That’s okay. There’s enough bandwidth here for everyone.
“Slither” bored me, mostly because I thought its humor fell flat. Nathan Fillion needed to bring his protrayal as Mal Reynolds in TV’s “Firefly” to make this movie’s similar comic aspects work better. In the “Slither” vs. “Snakes on a Plane” matchup, I’m going with “Snakes.”
I never saw any of the “Scary Movie” entries. Am I missing anything?
Editorstein is rooting around in his office muttering,” Ki ki ki ki, ma ma ma ma,” so I better get back to work before he finds the hockey mask and machete. Remember to post your favorite horror movies under the Oct. 1 topic, “Hey…you wanna see something really scary.” I’ll take the top three movies mentioned and do a day on each on Oct. 29, 30 and Halloween.
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