Die Laughing: The Deadly Art of Horror Comedy

Rating: 3/10 (30 May 2010)

Watching Zombieland (2009) for the first time on DVD recently reminded me how tenuous the sub genre of horror comedy can be. While it seems ever more difficult to craft a horror movie that is actually scary and a comedy that is actually funny, some filmmakers willingly set themselves the task of combining the two opposing genres. In the case of Zombieland, though successful in box office terms, it fails as a sub genre candidate. It's really just a comedy with some outrageously gory FX, which are played as sight gags rather than shock moments. In my opinion, a successful horror comedy should be just that, the horror before the comedy. Some of the best horror films have often incorporated humour to ballast the terror. In many ways the throwing of the girl into the river by Frankenstein's monster had a degree of humour to it (it's sequel Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) may well be the first ever horror comedy) and films like Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist (1982) and Joe Dante's The Howling (1981) are punctuated with humour threw out, the later more darkly so. The same could be said for any number of stalwarts of the horror genre. An American Werewolf In London (1981), Re-Animator (1985), Piranha (1978), Fright Night (1985), Gremlins (1984) and Critters (1986) are just some that use the push-pull of horror and comedy, some weighted to one side more than the other. However none of this films forgot to be scary, even the more innocuous (dare I say cute) examples like Gremlins and its inferior doppelganger Critters, both had death, blood and an overwhelmingly multiplying menace. Perhaps Ghostbusters (1984) could be branded as the sub genre's greatest success. I don't think anyone would find Ghostbusters sitting in the horror section of their local video store (if you still go to one), it's definitely a comedy, but in a couple of scenes, we are reminded of the 'evil' our heroes are up against. The scene in which Sigourney Weaver's character is abducted, demon claws ripping from her couch, hell hound drooling at the ready, is definitely not played for laughs. There is a certain air of doom in Ghostbusters. While the characters deliver comic dialogue, we understand that the ghosts they are busting are nasty and that the events are spiralling towards some kind of apocalypse. The point being, the film is serious and scary when it needs to be, something Zombieland and many others didn't quite grasp. *SPOILER* Ironically Bill Murray makes a cameo in Zombieland, and the characters actually watch Ghostbusters, as if saying, "Hey, we love that movie and this is our version of it". Frankly, they have nothing in common and Bill Murray looks pained for the short scene he appears.