Movie – Eating Raoul (1982)

In my prior review I noted that that film (The Insatiable) was probably the least overtly comedic of the films I had written about for my horror comedies category.  This time up the film I am going to recommend is probably the least horrific – at least in terms of what appears on screen.  Eating Raoul is a dark comedy about an ultraconservative couple who find they can kill people for profit and rid the world of “perverts” at the same time.  The film is played straight, not as a spoof.  In other words, it is filled with deadpan humor (and that was a pun, but if you haven’t seen the film, you won’t get it yet.)

Movie – The Insatiable (2007)

I hesitated on including The Insatiable in my Horror Comedies category.  It is a little more serious than the other films I have reviewed.  While there is humor in it, it is more understated than in movies such as Zombieland.  In addition, the rating for this film on IMDB is only average, which made me wonder if I was not remembering the appeal of this film correctly.  I did something I don’t often do and watched this film again before deciding to write this review.  My re-watch confirmed for me both that I like this film and that it has enough humor in it to be included in the horror comedy category.

Movie – Man Bites Dog (1992)

What if a documentary crew had been following the lead character of Alex from A Clockwork Orange around, Spinal Tap mockumentary style?  What if he was even more violent than we thought?  What if he chose to share his innermost thoughts on life, art, culture, and music while simultaneously killing people?  What if he had his own Spinal Tap “Stonehenge” and “lost behind the stage” moments?  What kind of movie would that be?  The answer is Man Bites Dog, an ultraviolent, seriously twisted, dark dark satire on "reality" programming.  I was saying to myself, "I shouldn't be laughing at this."  It’s a movie that is certainly not for the faint of heart.

Movie – The Lost Boys (1987)

The Lost Boys, combined with the release three months later of Near Dark (1987), signaled that there was a new kind of vampire movie out there and it wasn’t your parents’ creature of the night.  With nary a tuxedo, cape, old mansion, or coffin in sight, these two movies made a major redefinition in how people presented vampires.  These creatures were young, cool, and badass.  As the tag line for The Lost Boys says: “Sleep all day.  Party all night.  Never grow old.  Never die.  It’s fun to be a vampire.”  Don’t think these are cuddly Twilight vampires, though.  They are still brutal killers and there are no sparkles to be found (except maybe from sequins in all the 80s outfits).

Movie – The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

The Cabin in the Woods is an interesting take on the generic American horror movie.  On the one hand it is given the usual kind of skewed version of a story you can expect from writers Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard.  On the other hand, the film and the characters within it function as parallels to the entire movie industry, from the people who make the movies to those that watch them.  There are a number of references to other movies for the true horror fans, as well as some familiar faces for the Whedonites.  And to think, this film sat on the shelf for almost three years before it got released.

Movie – Slither (2006)

Slither wears its B movie horror comedy pedigree not with shame, but with pride.  Writer/director James Gunn had previously written the screenplays for the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake and the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo movie.  Take the tone of both of those films, mix them together, throw in some people like Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks who can do both comedy and drama, and you’ve got Slither.  It’s a fun movie, but it’s not for everyone.  I’ll explain.

Movie – Tremors (1990)

I can’t remember exactly why I rented the movie Tremors when it came to video back in 1990.  I’m not a big horror fan, but I do remember liking to watch Saturday afternoon “Creature Double Feature” movies on a local channel when I was a kid.  Maybe it was because this looked more like a “creature” movie than a horror film, or maybe I had seen the trailer to it and it looked like it might be some fun.  Whatever the reason, when I saw Tremors I liked it a lot and I started telling my friends they should watch it, too.  I got some funny looks, but those that did give it a try told me they also liked it.  It’s a fun film that works as an homage to the 1950s creature B movies, but it also has a decent story and a big sense of fun that makes it stand on its own.

Movie – Night of the Comet (1984)

Return with me, if you will, to the early 1980s (aka the Valley Girl Ages).  Frank Zappa’s song Valley Girl had been a big phenomenon and had captured a moment in time of “teen speak” from his southern California daughter and her friends.  It became a bit of a social phenomenon and even Hollywood jumped on the bandwagon.  There were a string of movies about empty-headed valley girls.  Towards the end of this run the movie Night of the Comet hit theaters.  Long before Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame had the thought “what if a monster follows a pretty blond girl into an alley and she kills him?” this film made two valley girls the seemingly sole human survivors of a global catastrophe.  They weren’t empty headed, though, and their military man father had trained them in self defense and how to fire a weapon.  The result was a very tongue in cheek film – one that most horror fans were not ready for.

Movie – Zombieland (2009)

What do you get when you take three Oscar nominees and a Golden Globe nominee, throw them together in a movie about zombies, and let them do their thing?  Zombieland (which is, according to someone with way too much time on their hands, the highest grossing movie ever to start with the letter “Z”.)  While this may be sacrilege to Night of the Dawn of the Day of the Twilight of the Midmorning of the Shaun of the Dead fans, Zombieland is my favorite movie about zombies.

Movie – Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)

You know the drill: a bunch of college students decide to go camping in the woods.  They stop for supplies and meet two scary looking hillbillies.  A nubile coed catches their eye and they cast unsavory looks at her.  The students continue to their camp site where they encounter the hillbillies again.  Carnage and chaos ensue.  Don’t be so fast to judge, though.  Have you ever asked yourself, “What is the story from the hillbillies’ perspective?”  Maybe, just maybe, they are innocent creatures in the wild who are more scared of the students than the students are of them.  What if they are just innocent victims of profiling?

Laugh Until It Hurts (Horror Comedies)

“When lights flicker, this sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means that your home is possessed by demons.  If you’re not sure whether your house is possessed, see The Amityville Horror, a fine documentary film.” – Dave Barry

As a genre, many modern horror films don’t do much for me.  Over the years I would watch a horror film for the suspense and scares, while others would watch them for the blood and gore.  It feels like in the last 20-30 years that the “gorehounds” are the ones buying all the tickets to see horror movies so studios have been catering to them more and more. 

In addition, I find most of the chase scenes boring, not suspenseful.  The woman is being chased by the killer/psycho/monster/alien.  She trips (gee, didn’t see that coming.)  She hides behind a door/tree/rock.  She keeps looking back the way she came and doesn’t see the pursuer.  Suddenly, she is killed from a different direction, with a loud noise in the musical score to tell us we should now jump (gee, didn’t see that coming, either).  There are only so many ways that filmmakers can show this same scene and they ran out of new ones a long time ago.  The only way to make them different is to increase the gore factor over what has been seen in earlier films.

In all honesty, if I’m going to watch a movie with little to no plot then I would much prefer to see a beautiful woman naked, with her insides where they belong – on the inside.  Seeing various organs and intestines scattered all over the place has never held any appeal for me.  (Please note that I am not opposed to a certain level of bloodiness; I just don’t find it entertaining.)

When I have mentioned this in the past I usually get the horrified (pun intended) response, “You don’t like horror movies?”  I would tell them that of course I like some horror movies and then proceed to name off a bunch.  After I did it a few times, though, I noticed a pattern where many of the ones I was naming had comedic elements in them in addition to the horror.

Oh sure, I like plenty of “straight” horror movies, too.  28 Days Later (2002) is a very good, modern horror film that has a whole other layer about human nature in the face of a breakdown in society.  The Descent (2005), in addition to being scary, inspired many debates about whether it had a positive or negative portrayal of women in it.  The Haunting (1963) is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen.  (Know how much gore is shown in it?  Zilch.  Nada.  Nary an intestine to be found.)  These are just a few examples.

Horror movies that make me laugh, though, seem to be the kind I prefer.  I’ve already written reviews of enough horror comedies for other categories that I could fill this new category with just those.  I will include the links to them below, but I will also be writing reviews for roughly ten more films that I feel you might like.

A few notes:  I will not be reviewing Evil Dead II (1987) here.  I am saving it for a “Sequels That Are Better than the Originals” category I will do someday.  The same goes for Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), which will go in a future “What the Hell Did I Just Watch?” (title subject to change) category.  Finally, I have seen Cemetery Man (1994) twice and I still don’t know what the heck is going on in the second half of it, so I can’t in good conscience recommend it.

After I post each review for the films in this category I will add a link to them here:

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)
Zombieland (2009)
Night of the Comet (1984)
Tremors (1990)
Slither (2006)
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
The Lost Boys (1987)
Man Bites Dog (1992)
The Insatiable (2007)
Eating Raoul (1982)

An American Werewolf in London (1981) – reviewed August 29, 2012

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) – reviewed April 17, 2011

My Name is Bruce (2006) – reviewed August 26, 2011

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) – reviewed December 17, 2011

Serial Mom (1994) – reviewed December 20, 2012

Shaun of the Dead (2004) – reviewed April 7, 2011

On to the reviews…

Movie – Serial Mom (1994)

Serial Mom might be the first John Waters film I ever saw.  If you’ve never seen any movies from him let’s just say that they are out of the ordinary.  This film, for instance, is a dark comedy about a seemingly perfect mom that is a serial killer of people who do not observe all the standards of a polite society.  And this may be the most mainstream of the John Waters’ films that I have seen.  Reactions to this film vary widely, as they do with most of his movies.  Some people think this film is an outrage; I thought it was funny as hell.

Movie – An American Werewolf in London (1981)

As a genre, horror movies don’t do much for me.  They have to be really outstanding for me to recommend them to others.  One of the things I do like is the occasional horror movie that mixes comedy into it.  This is probably because I am a fan of dark comedy.  An American Werewolf in London is one of those films.  It takes the overused concept of the werewolf movie and turns it on its ear.  The movie still contains plenty of gore for the people who watch horror movies for that, though. 

Movie – Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

What if the original Santa wasn’t the kind, jolly old man that stories make him out to be?  What if the legend got garbled over the thousands of years from when an ancient people first encountered him to when modern people now encounter him again?  How would they respond?  The movie Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale answers those questions and more.  As the tagline for the movie says, “This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus.”  The film is a mixture of suspense and dark comedy that is highly entertaining.  It is number 5 on my list of the best non-traditional Christmas movies.

Movie – My Name is Bruce (2006)

The title of this movie refers to Bruce Campbell, star of many B movies, including the Evil Dead trilogy.  [You can read my review of his best movie here.]  In My Name is Bruce he gets mistaken for his Evil Dead character of Ash by a town that needs help fighting off a demon.  Both carnage and hilarity ensue.

Movie – Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

I could try to sum this movie up in one sentence by saying that it’s “Elvis and JFK vs. an ancient Egyptian mummy in an old folks’ home”, but that would convey only a small part of what the movie is about.  It does convey that it’s a comedy, but it doesn’t let you know that it’s also a bittersweet look at how old folks are marginalized both by their infirmities and by the people around them.  It also doesn’t let you know that it’s a reasonably respectful portrayal of Elvis, rather than a roast or parody of him.  Finally, it doesn’t let you know that it is a sometimes touching look of what it means to be a hero.

Movie – Shaun of the Dead (2004)

This movie was directed by Edgar Wright.  It stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.  Pegg and Wright co-wrote the movie.

All three of these guys loved zombie movies and there had been a bit of a revival in interest in them with 2002’s 28 Days Later and the upcoming (in 2004) remake of Dawn of the Dead.  As you can tell from the title being a play on words on Dawn of the Dead, this movie is a comedy.  In fact, they claimed they had created a new genre, the “rom-zom-com.”  A “rom-com” is a romantic comedy, so a “rom-zom-com” is a romantic comedy with zombies.  You might not think the combination would work, but it does.