Horror and comedy are two highly popular genres that are both very difficult to pull off successfully. For every classic of the genre, there are hundreds of duds. However, perhaps even harder to pull off is the subgenre of horror-comedies. A balancing act that requires a lot of skill and judgment, but if done right they can produce some of the best reactions from audiences. Success lies in the film's ability to create an equal feeling of joy and fear.
Not necessarily something like Young Frankenstein which, while a classic, takes too much joy in parodying the scares rather than delivering them. Edgar Wright has proved several times that he can get the balance right; presenting a setting that on the surface can seem quirky and weird, but when pushed just a little further reveals itself to be dark and unpleasant.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
After Hot Fuzz starts with Sergeant Nicholas Angel, a London police officer so effective at his job he must be transferred to a quiet country town, where nothing happens, so he stops embarrassing his colleagues.
The film starts by poking fun at the town, but as its inhabitants become increasingly surreal it starts to tip over into the sinister. The plot is more played for laughs, but there are sequences in the film that are more shocking than most slasher films.
Dead Snow (2009)
A Norwegian horror-comedy that pays great homage to zombie army. The film doesn't take itself too seriously and this is where most of the laughs come from. However, it does take mountain setting very seriously, including an avalanche sequence that is exceptionally terrifying.
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
The smash-hit mockumentary from Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement. The film 'documents' a group of vampires in a house share in New Zealand. It explores their daily routines, the little squabbles they get into, and the difficulties of living as a vampire in the modern age. While the characters are themselves very funny (their pride and their egos often clash, to great effect) the film never forgets that they belong to a world of evil and darkness. Some of the surreal imagery used is genuinely disturbing and, living in the basement, is a fourth, and far more deadly vampire.
Tucker and Dale Vs Evil (2010)
In a brilliant twist on horror tropes of old, Alan Tudyk and Taylor Labine play two ominous-looking hill-billies who want nothing more than to look after the vacationing group of city kids next door, rather than kill them. The film is shown from the perspectives of the kids who work themselves into hysteria imagining what the men might do to them. The biggest laughs come from the ways the kids accidentally brutally kill themselves as they run away from nothing. But, when the true evil does reveal itself, it is satisfyingly nasty.
The Host (2006)
Before Bong-Joon Ho's best-known film. Set in Seoul it follows a working-class Korean family on the day a giant, mutant fish-monster goes on the rampage. When one of their own is kidnapped by the creature the family work together to rescue her. While the creature is as scary and threatening as any movie monster, the family are not the typical movie heroes; they bicker, they can't fight very well and often they're extremely clumsy. They do what they do out of love and desperation, they're just not very good at it.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Gremlins ripped up the Christmas movie rule book; Gremlins 2 ripped up the Gremlins movie rule book. While the first had been quite dark, the second goes for the ridiculous. Set in a multitudinous skyscraper, after another Gremlins outbreak, Gizmo and the gang have to put a stop to the mayhem.
The film represents such a bizarre change of direction for the horror franchise that it has become a cult classic. While definitely more a gross-out comedy than a horror, it is still worth watching, because there is nothing like it.
Krampus (2015)
Not only does Krampus pull off the tricky horror/comedy balancing act, but it also works as a horror/Christmas film. Adapting traditional German folklore, the Krampus is an anti-Santa Claus (far scarier and with more fangs and horns) charged with delivering punishments to bad children. Starring Adam Scott and Toni Collette, who lead a great comedic cast, the film manages to delve into the darker side of Christmas, discussing how difficult it is to be definitively labeled bad or good.
Re-Animator (1985)
Iconic horror author H.P.Lovecraft has never had much luck in getting his work adapted effectively. It is ironic, therefore, that the best adaptation of his writing had to inject it with humor for it to work. It follows Herbert West a brilliant, but weird, medical student who believes he's found a way to bring the dead back to life. Comedy comes from the over-top-performance of West and also his need to kill people just to bring them back to life. But, the film strikes the right balance of surreal making a lot of it very uncomfortable. Combined with some great practical effects, the film grows steadily gruesome.
The Frighteners (1996)
The Frighteners is a fun little film with more than enough scares. Michael J. Fox stars as Frank, a man who can see and communicate with ghosts. Set up as a con, his ghostly compatriots haunt a house before he comes along to exorcise it, that is before a real threat finally comes into town.
The film has a classic caper set-up but is bolstered by (for the time) some cutting-edge CGI and practical effects that make for some genuinely scary sequences.
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Long considered the high watermark of the horror-comedy genre, Evil Dead 2 is often featured on lists of the best films of all time. Ash Williams travels to a remote cabin in the woods with his girlfriend. Less than five minutes into the film his girlfriend is killed, turned into a demon, killed again, and then Ash himself is possessed. The film is very simple and small, but so completely perfect. To escape the cabin is the only plot, but nearly every scene is so well judged that it can either have its audience laughing or it can have it screaming. Very few films have this much entertainment value.
