Horror and comedy are two genres that have been linked since as far back as 1935's Bride
of Frankenstein.
There's just something about laughter and terror that works particularly well together.
Here are some of the best horror comedies you may not have seen yet.
​Life After Beth
Despite starring John C. Reilly and Aubrey Plaza of Parks and Recreation, 2014's Life
After Beth never got all that much buzz.
As the title character, Plaza succumbs to the lethal effects of a snakebite and comes
back as a zombie — but she doesn't know she's a zombie, and neither does her boyfriend
Zach, played by Dane DeHaan.
But as Beth's condition gradually deteriorates into the usual rotting, groaning, and people-eating,
it becomes clear that being undead might be a fate worse than...well, you know.
By that point in the story, other zombies are popping up as
well, and Zach has to accept that happily ever after probably isn't in the cards.
Life After Beth certainly isn't the only zombie romantic comedy, but it's a particularly strong
one, and definitely worth checking out.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Gremlins is a great horror comedy, but it's hardly under-appreciated.
Its 1990 sequel, on the other hand, is often unfairly dismissed as too silly, too over-the-top,
and too outright ridiculous.
But it's that ridiculousness that actually makes it so much fun to watch.
Whereas Gremlins takes place in a tiny town straight out of the past, Gremlins 2: The
New Batch unfolds in an absurdly high-tech skyscraper and introduces a preposterous batch
of new gremlins.
"Brainy Gremlin, Spider Gremlin, Bat Gremlin, Lady Gremlin, Googly-Eyed Gremlin, Electricity
Gremlin, Hulk Hogan gonna be in the motherf---er, I'ma throw in a Gremlin myself!
Vegetable Gremlin!"
If you watched the original but skipped The New Batch, it's time to correct that mistake.
​Return of the Living Dead
1985's The Return of the Living Dead has long been considered a cult classic, but it doesn't
come up in conversations nearly as often as it did in the decade following its release.
This unofficial sequel to George Romero's Night of the Living Dead pushes its zombie
narrative to new lengths while playing it totally straight, despite being completely
ridiculous.
One of the zombies from the original incident that supposedly inspired Romero's film has
been kept in the basement of a medical supply company, and two employees accidentally release
it...along with a gas that spreads the zombie virus.
It's campy and silly, but it's a lot of fun, and it was the first movie to put brains on
the menu for zombies.
"Brains."
Patchwork
This little-seen indie from 2015 is a totally unique take on the Frankenstein idea.
It starts with three women who each have a particularly bad night out at a club, and
each end up pushing daisies.
But a mad scientist working for a shady company stitches the three together to create a single
being.
Almost inevitably, the patchwork woman takes violent revenge on people who have wronged
all her component parts, which leads to a massacre at a frat house, among other things.
If you like your horror comedy a little more on the darker side, this is definitely a movie
to check out.
Bubba Ho-Tep
Horror legend Don Coscarelli always had a unique take on the genre, as any Phantasm
fan knows.
But his 2002 film Bubba Ho-Tep is truly unlike anything else.
The title character is a cowboy mummy who's menacing an old folks' home where one of the
residents is an aging Elvis Presley, played by Bruce Campbell.
"I felt my pecker flutter once like a pigeon having a heart attack.
Then it laid back down and remained limp and still."
To stop this supernatural menace, Elvis will have to team up with Jack, an elderly black
man who thinks he's John F. Kennedy.
Bubba Ho-Tep is a surprisingly touching movie about growing old and accepting your mortality,
but it's also a movie where JFK and Elvis fight a cowboy mummy, and that's every bit
as amazing as it sounds.
Slither
Eight years before he took the helm of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, writer/director James
Gunn made his feature debut with the 2006 horror comedy Slither.
Drawing inspiration from a wide variety of sci-fi horror films, it's set in a small town
that's invaded by space slugs that take over people's bodies and turn them into zombies.
With a cast that includes Elizabeth Banks, Nathan Fillion, and Michael Rooker, this is
a movie that never stops moving at full speed, combining verbal comedy, action, and over-the-top
gross-out effects.
​The Stuff
1985's The Stuff definitely has a unique horror premise: what if a wildly popular new dessert
on the market was actually evil?
Nobody knows what the Stuff is, but everybody wants to eat it.
Well, almost everyone — because young Jason thinks it's gross and swears he once saw it
move on its own.
When his family loses interest in everything except eating more Stuff, Jason teams up with
a former FBI agent to investigate what it is and where it comes from.
The Stuff turns out to be a mysterious substance, mined from deep within the Earth, that causes
those who eat it to become mindless zombies.
Now it's up to Jason and his partner to stop it before it takes over the world.
The Stuff is very 1980s in both its aesthetics and its satire of consumerism, but it's still
a fun movie to watch when you're looking for scares you can't take too seriously.
The Raven
This Roger Corman movie from 1963 doesn't have much in the way of a plot, but its cast
is pretty amazing.
Corman mainstay Vincent Price is joined by fellow horror legends Peter Lorre and Boris
Karloff, along with future legend Jack Nicholson.
The movie starts with Edgar Allan Poe's poem, as a retired magician named Dr. Craven mourns
his wife Lenore and finds his study invaded by a talking raven — who turns out to be
a transformed sorcerer looking for help regaining his human shape.
He also reveals that Lenore hasn't kicked the bucket after all — she's at the castle
of the evil Scarabus.
Once the three are united on-screen, they seem to pretty much give up on the script
in favor of just goofing off together.
But if you're a fan of vintage horror, watching this trio do what they do best is a unique
delight.
What We Do in the Shadows
Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi co-directed and starred in 2014's What We Do in the Shadows,
which takes the mockumentary format and applies it to vampires, to hilarious effect.
The fictional documentary follows four New Zealand housemates who happen to be immortal
vampires.
Each of them carries the values and habits of the eras in which they were born, which
leads to real-life conflicts… like whose turn it is to clean up the kitchen.
"The point is Deacon is that you have not done the dishes for five years."
"That's right.
It's unacceptable to have so many bloody dishes all over this bench."
What We Do in the Shadows might be the best new horror comedy of the last five years,
and its buzz is bound to grow with the release of the Waititi-directed Thor: Ragnarok.
If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out now, before people start asking you how
you've possibly avoided this classic.
It's so good...it's scaaaaaary.
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