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Funny Horror Movies see all Horror Film DVDs Want a funny horror movie to watch on Halloween night? Camp and comedy are part of the fun of many horror films. Here are a few of the best camp horror film cult classics offering the most guffaws among the gore. |
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One of Roman Polanski's more overt comedies, this 1966 monster spectacle stars Jack MacGowran and Polanski as a clunky but heroic pair of vampire killers. Called upon to rescue the beautiful and buxom daughter (Sharon Tate) of an innkeeper from a Draculalike bloodsucker, the duo muddle through all sorts of scrapes, the most intense being a scene in which a room full of dancing vampires realize the human interlopers are the only ones in the room who are reflected in a mirror. Scary and funny, the film has some unforgettable set pieces, a terrific score, one of the few records of Tate's extraordinary beauty, and vibrant performances. Not exactly Polanski in a relaxed mode, but clear evidence of his estimable skills as a director of both brilliance and polish. |
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Evil Dead 2 - Dead by Dawn (1987)
Writer-director
Sam Raimi's extremely stylized, blood-soaked follow-up to his creepy Evil
Dead isn't really a sequel; rather, it's a remake on a better budget. It
also isn't really a horror film (though there are plenty of decapitations,
zombies, supernatural demons, and gore) as much as it is a hilarious, sophisticated
slapstick send-up of the terror genre. Raimi takes every horror convention
that exists and exaggerates it with mind-blowing special effects, crossed
with mocking Three Stooges humor. The plot alone is a genre cliché right
out of any number of horror films. Several teens (including our hero, Ash,
played by Bruce Campbell in a manic tour-de-force of physical comedy) visit
a broken-down cottage in the woods--miles from civilization--find a copy
of the Book of the Dead, and unleash supernatural powers that gut every character
in sight. All, that is, except Ash, who takes this very personally and spends
much of the of the film getting his head smashed while battling the unseen
forces. Raimi uses this bare-bones story as a stage to showcase dazzling
special effects and eye-popping visuals, including some of the most spectacular
point-of-view Steadicam work ever (done by Peter Deming). Although it went
unnoticed in the theaters, the film has since become an influential cult-video
favorite, paving the way for over-the-top comic gross-out films like Peter
Jackson's Dead Alive.
Shaun of the Dead
British horror/comedy Shaun of the Dead is a scream in all senses of the
word. Brain-hungry zombies shamble through the streets of London, but all
unambitious electronics salesman Shaun (Simon Pegg) cares about is his girlfriend
Liz (Kate Ashfield), who just dumped him. With the help of his slacker roommate
Ed (Nick Frost), Shaun fights his way across town to rescue Liz, but the
petty concerns of life keep getting in the way: When they're trying to use
vinyl records to decapitate a pair of zombies, Shaun and Ed bicker about
which bands deserve preservation--New Order they keep, but Sade becomes a
lethal frisbee. Many zombie movies are comedies by accident, but Shaun of
the Dead is deliberately and brilliantly funny, while still delivering a
few delicious jolts of fear. Also featuring the stealthy comic presence of
Bill Nighy (Love Actually) and some familar faces from The Office.
Director James Whale deftly combined dry, sardonic humor with classic horror elements to produce the richly entertaining black comedy "The Old Dark House". By turns darkly witty and genuinely creepy, the film benefits from a razor-sharp script, moody cinematography, and uniformly fine performances in addition to Whale's creative directorial flourishes. Simply summarized, the plot involves a group of stranded travelers who take refuge in an isolated Welsh mansion owned by a dangerously eccentric family during a terrific storm; before the night passes, members of the group will encounter terror, romance and even death as the thunder, wind and rain rage outside.
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If you're not a connoisseur of graphic horror and gruesome gore, you'd better steer clear of this wicked 1992 horror-comedy from the demented mind and delirious camera of New Zealand-born writer-director Peter Jackson. However, if nonstop mayhem and extreme violence are your idea of great entertainment, you're sure to appreciate Jackson's gleefully inventive approach to a story that can judiciously be described as sick, twisted, and totally outrageous. The movie's central character is a poor schmuck named Lionel who's practically enslaved to his domineering mother. But when ol' Mum gets bitten by a rare and poisonous rat monkey from Skull Island and is turned into a flesh-eating zombie, Lionel has the unfortunate task of keeping Mama happy while fending off all the other zombies that result from her voracious feeding frenzies. If you've read this far, you'll either be crying out for censorship or eagerly awaiting your first viewing (or second, or third...) of this wildly clever and audaciously uninhibited movie. And while director Jackson would later achieve critical success with his fact-based drama Heavenly Creatures, his talent is readily evident in this earlier effort.
The Howling (Special Edition) (1981)
A graduate of Roger Corman's school of low-budget ingenuity, Joe Dante gained enough momentum with 1978's Piranha to rise to the challenge of The Howling, and he brought along Piranha screenwriter John Sayles to cowrite this instant werewolf classic. Makeup wizard Rob Bottin was recruited to create what was then the wildest onscreen transformation ever seen. With Gary Brandner's novel The Howling as a starting point, Sayles and Dante conceived a werewolf colony on the California coast, posing as a self-help haven led by a seemingly benevolent doctor (Patrick Macnee), and populated by a variety of "patients," from sexy, leather-clad sirens (among them Elisabeth Brooks) to an old coot (John Carradine) who's quite literally long in the tooth. When a TV reporter (Dee Wallace) arrives at the colony to recover from a recent trauma, the resident lycanthropes prepare for a howlin' good time. Dante handles it all with equal measures of humor, sex, gore, and horror, pulling out all the stops when the ravenous Eddie transforms into a towering, bloodthirsty werewolf. As usual, in-jokes abound, from characters named after werewolf-movie directors, amusing cameos (Corman, Sayles, Forrest J. Ackerman), and hammy inserts of wolfish cartoons and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." It's best appreciated now as a quintessential example of early-'80s horror, with low-budget limitations evident throughout, but The Howling remains a giddy genre milestone.
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Japan’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Zombie Horror Classic Is Finally Coming To DVD! Ace, a rockabilly fan who really wants to be cool, is on his way to seeing his favorite group Guitar Wolf when a strange thing occurs . . . aliens invade the Earth and people start returning to life as flesh-eating zombies! Enlisting the help of the (real-life) Japanese rock/ punk band Guitar Wolf (and self-proclaimed coolest rock band in the world), Ace and the members of the band get entangled in many misadventures with crazy rock managers in very tight shorts, transsexuals, naked women shooting guns in the shower, and bloodthirsty zombies ready to tear them apart. Leather jackets, loud over-modulated music, laser guitar picks, motorcycles, muscle cars, and LOTS of fire . . . it’s all right here! Did we also happen to mention flesh-eating zombies? Think Dawn of the Dead meets Kiss meets The Phantom of the Park with the humor of Evil Dead 2 and that’s what Wild Zero is all about!
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At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul-DVD (1963)
Unholy undertaker, evil philosopher, denizen of dreams and hallucination--Coffin Joe, with his trademark top hat, black cape and long talon-like finger nails, is a horror icon in his native Brazil. He is the creation of writer-director-star Jose Mojica Marins whose perversely original and strangely personal filmmaking style has been compared to an unholy blend of Mario Brava, Luis Bunuel and Russ Meyer. The film debut of Coffin Joe was also the first true horror film made in Brazil. Joe terrorizes a small religious community in his search for the perfect woman to bear a child. Frightening, atmospheric and startlingly graphic for it's time. 35 year later, "At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul" has become an international horror classic.
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Bubba Ho-Tep Limited Collector's Edition (2002)
Don Coscarelli directs and Bruce Campbell stars as the King of Camp in this intentionally over-the-top schlockfest. Bubba Ho-Tep is partially about Elvis Presley and partially about the title character, an Egyptian cowboy zombie, but mostly it is about camp. The movie is equal parts story and back story. We learn through narration and flashback how Elvis didn't really die, ending up instead in a rest home in East Texas with JFK (played by Ossie Davis), who was dyed black and had his brain removed, presumably for reasons of national security. Campbell and Davis realize that something strange is going on when their rest-home compatriots start dropping off suspiciously. The whole movie leads up to a final showdown to the death with the Egyptian cowboy zombie who has been sucking the souls of their fellow residents because he thought no one would notice.
Night of the Demons-DVD (1988)
If you like 80s styled horror movies, "Night of the Demons" is just what the doctor ordered. The movie is about a group of teenagers who decide to party on Halloween night in some old funeral parlor that is supposed to be "possessed" by demons. Certainly not the scariest movie of all-time, "Night of the Demons" is a rather imaginitive and well done horror flick focusing the possession of human beings by demons. There is an undeniable black comedy/dark humor aspect to this flick which really overrides any pure element of horror that is present. Nevertheless, the movie has surprisingly good special effects and realistic looking demons.
New Zealand maverick Peter Jackson made a splash (well, more of a splatter) with this film debut, a slapstick gross-out comedy about an alien fast-food franchise that turns a small town into a cheap source of meat. All that stands in the extraterrestrials' way is the Alien Investigation Defense Service (yes, it's a tasteless gag), a bunch of would-be Rambos who take on the aliens with axes, rocket launchers, and chainsaws. Jackson mines vomit jokes, dismembered corpses, and brain-spattering gore for over-the-top laughs and succeeds with inventive low-budget effects, crack timing, and sheer exuberance. Not bad for a film made on weekends with homemade props and a bunch of energetic mates. Jackson topped himself a few years later with the even more outrageous and hilarious bloody gut-buster Dead Alive.
Playgirls & The Vampire-DVD (1963)
Hilariously awful movie about a busload of showgirls and their disreputable manager who break down outside a spooky castle after running out on their hotel bill. Little do they know the hospitable count who owns the castle is a vampire. The girls wander around in various states of undress and practice their tacky "dance routines" while the count eyeballs them and his spinsterish housekeeper mutters snide remarks. One girl falls prey to the vampire and comes back in the nude! Wearing nothing but fangs, she attempts to vampirize the manager. The heroine becomes the object of the vampire's lust because she resembles his long lost lover. Of course it all wraps up neat and tidy. There's no gore but lots of cheap lingerie and atmosphere. This is a wonderful example of sixties EuroTrash at it's most silliest. The print is good and the soundtrack adequately clear so you can relish the cheesy dialogue and psuedo-atmospheric sets. No budget, bad acting, bad dubbing and the script sounds like it was made up as they went along. Servicable b&w photography works well, the ENERGY is there and the earnestness to put over a Gothic horror movie in a spooky castle despite the frequent lapses into tasteless cheesecake...a true Euro-shlock classic.
Blade Trilogy - The Ultimate Collection-DVD
According to Blade, pure silver, garlic & sunlight are the main tools to combat vampires. ("Crosses don't do d***, so forget about what you've seen in the movies") But the fact that the pure blood vampires are personified as old & disposable, while the nonpure vampires are young and virile, looking to take over and run things, can really be looked at as a depiction of our society, with the old guard being kicked out by the new one, lest anarchy ensue.
Attack of the Killer TomatoesMovies with "wacky" titles are almost never any good, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! was intentionally made to be an instant golden turkey. Despite that, and the grade-Z production values, this is a regularly funny film. You need to be a fan of the kind of low-budget horror movie it's spoofing, and you need to be very forgiving of the technical ineptness and frequent clunkers, but it works. The story? Well, tomatoes attack, basically. Jack Riley and the San Diego Chicken are in it, and that genuinely alarming helicopter crash you see in an early scene was a real accident. Seen now, the whole ratty affair brings back agreeable memories of the circa-1978 college-movie/midnight-cinema era, when seeing this film was virtually unavoidable. The sequel, Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (with a young George Clooney), is actually an even funnier film. Director John De Bello would continue to squeeze the Tomatoes franchise for years to come.
Killer Klowns
from Outer Space
What's completely and utterly baffling about Killer Klowns is not the plot--that's rather tidily summed up by the title--but the fact that it got made at all. According to the filmmakers, (the Chiodo brothers: Charles, Edward, and Stephen) all it took to convince the studio was a one-page treatment and a picture of a clown holding a gun. It boggles the mind. Anyway, some killer Klowns descend from outer space and start wrapping their hapless victims in cotton candy for later consumption. Debbie and Mike suspect something's amiss, but who will believe them? The movie's greatest asset is its willingness to play on the inherent creepiness of clowns. The Klowns are grotesque parodies of their big-top cousins, hiding hideous malformed teeth behind terrifying circus makeup. It's impossible to tell if Killer Klowns is truly meant to be scary, but it is compelling in its thoroughness: popcorn, balloon animals, and really big shoes are all used to their fullest effect. The only cast member you'll recognize immediately is veteran character actor John Vernon as Officer Mooney, but keep an eye out for Christopher Titus in a small role as Bob McReed. Then just sit back and stare open-mouthed in bewildered joy. Low-budget sci fi cheesy fun.
