Horror Comedies.

Laughter is said to be some of the best medicine. I mean, maybe not for like literal medical problems, but the phrase is kind of a cute happy thing. I love certain types of comedy. Like the good one-liners, zany shenanigans, or even recurring gags make me giggle.

I am also a horror fan though. (Sit down! Sit down! You all knew this already, unless this is the first blog post you’re reading from me.) One of my favorite sub-genres of the horror genre is horror comedy.

Scary but silly. An equal balance of both is always good, and it has been a great escape from… certain bad feelings about recent events.

For those wondering what classifies a movie as a horror comedy, I am not entirely sure. Because there are lots of standard horror movies that utilize comedy that aren’t considered horror comedy. My guess is that a horror comedy is a movie that can balance out the horror elements with comedy. Some popular examples of films that are considered horror comedy are movies like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies or Happy Death Day. Tucker and Dale vs Evil is a good example that I have seen and enjoy.

I do enjoy horror comedy, but I do not enjoy ALL horror comedy. Since Halloween has passed and we’re moving on down to other holidays, I feel like I can share a belated list of horror comedies that I absolutely love. (This post has been inspired by the trailer for Josh Ruben’s upcoming film Heart Eyes, and the genre is a romantic slasher comedy. Those are my activation words, I swear. X3)

Deadstream

Part of my introduction to the genre of found footage horror, this film is equal parts chilling and hilarious. It follows a disgraced youtuber desperate to get his audience back. He decides to break into and spend the night in an abandoned haunted house. It is a different type of found footage film, as it uses the feed from his livestream cameras to tell the story. Deadstream was directed and written by the team of Vanessa and Joseph Winter (who also plays the main character of the film.) The film also stars Melanie Stone, Jason K. Wixom, among other actors. Including Studio C’s Jeremy Warner whom I did not catch on my first watch? So, wow! You can find this streaming on Shudder.

Boys From County Hell

Possibly my new favorite vampire movie. This movie strays from a normal portrayal of the classic vampire in favorite of an older Irish legend. According to iMDB, director Chris Baugh wrote the screenplay for this film in just five days after visiting Bram Stoker’s grave. The movie follows a crew of Irish road workers lead by a son and his father, as they accidentally awaken an ancient Irish vampire. This movie was full of so many funny moments, which I already loved, but the thing that got to me was the depiction of a… I would honestly say better type of vampire lore. I don’t want to give too much away here. As I said earlier this film was directed and written by Chris Baugh (and Brendan Mullin) and stars Jack Rowan, Nigel O’Neill, Louisa Harland, Michael Hough, and John Lynch. Which is a rather stacked cast of actors who have been in various projects I have seen before, but Jack Rowan is easiest for me to recognize from his role as Danny on the BBC slasher comedy series Wreck! This movie is available to stream on Shudder.

The Menu

My parents and youngest sister hate this movie for some reason! But it’s okay! I love this movie and its commentary on the rich consumer. It’s about a group of people who go to the private island to eat at an exclusive restaurant operated by a celebrity chef called Julian Slowik, who has some… surprises laid out for his guests. Unlike my family, I thought this movie was so well done, especially with the acting and the storytelling. Was it a bit artsy and thought-provoking? Sure! Did it make me giggle at parts? Yes. It has absolutely fantastic performances by its leads in Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, and Nicholas Hoult. But the rest of the cast is also really fun to watch, especially Hong CHau and John Leguizamo. This movie was directed by Mark Mylod and written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy. You can find this, one of my favorite horror movies, on Hulu.

Scare Me

Josh Ruben shows up again in this post for a movie that came out back in 2020. Scare Me has one of my favorite elements to it. The movie is about a writer on retreat who bumps into another more prominent author. A power outage brings them together and they decide to tell each other scary stories, but as they tell them… a fear begins to manifest for our characters, a very real very human fear. Sounds vague? What if I told you, that they tell these stories on screen and act them out as they tell them. That’s right! They act out the stories in this limited cabin space. It was such a fun and almost unserious element to the film. The movie was directed by, written by, and stars Dropout.tv’s Josh Ruben. Was that sentence grammatically correct? No, it wasn’t. But that is okay. The movie also stars Aya Cash, Chris Redd, and Rebecca Drysdale which was such a fun cast to watch. This is also streaming on Shudder.

Slotherhouse

A killer sloth. Yes. This is about a killer sloth. And yes, a character actually says the title of this movie in the movie. Slotherhouse is about a college senior who wants to be elected her sorority’s president. So she adopts this cute sloth from a shady animal poacher, thinking that it will help her get the win. But this is a horror comedy, so we all know what happens next. This movie was a delight to watch, and very silly. It is directed by Matthew Goodhue and written by Bradley Fowler and Cady Lanigan (both of whom also had parts in the film.) The film stars Lisa Ambalavanar, Sydney Craven, Andrew Horton, Bianca Beckles-Rose, and Olivia Rouyre. Once again, this is available on Hulu.

Werewolves Within

Another movie directed by Josh Ruben? Yeah! Dude, the man makes good movies! Sue me! This movie surrounds a town called Beaverfeild divided over a new gas pipeline proposal. A snowstorm, and a power outage, traps a group of the town’s residents in a local inn as a mysterious creature starts to terrorize the community. It’s a very whodunnit story, where you the viewer have the chance to try and pinpoint which of these characters is/are (a) werewolf/ves. This Josh Ruben directed film was written by Mishna Wolff, which is a fitting name for the writer of a werewolf movie. It stars Sam Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, Catherine Curtin, Cheyenne Jackson, Harvey Guillen, and many others.

Willy’s Wonderland

Want to watch a mostly silent Nic Cage beat the shit out of some animatronic robots? This movie isn’t perfect. But it’s funny as hell and gosh darn I loved watching Nic Cage in this. This movie follows a quiet drifter who is tricked into doing a caretaking shift at a condemned pizza place called Willy’s Wonderland in order to pay for the car repairs. And it is a really nice car. The animatronics are all possessed by former murder-y employees. And Nicolas Cage’s character, known as “The Janitor” has to fight through each one. It was the most fun I have ever had on a flight. This movie was written by G.O. Parsons and directed by Kevin Lewis. It stars Nicolas Cage, Emily Tosta, and Beth Grant.

You Might Be The Killer

It has been a hot minute, but I couldn’t talk about horror comedy without bringing this movie up. This movie is based off of a twitter conversation from about… God… it’s been a while, but it was based on a twitter thread between authors Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig. The two authors are credited as producers and writers on the film, and the two main characters are named after them. I have seen this movie about four times, and I am due for a rewatch soon, but I love it. It is made in the same spirit as the twitter conversation, but it is so cool to see it more fleshed out with gory kills and more injected humor. The movie follows a camp counselor suffering from blackouts who finds himself surrounded by murder victims, who calls his horror enthusiast friend at her late-night movie store job. If you know the tweet thread this is based on, and the title, you can guess how the movie plays out. The movie is directed by Brett Simmons, and it written by Simmons, Covis Berzoyne, and Thomas P. Vitale. It stars Fran Kranz, Alyson Hannigan, Brittany S. Hall, and Jenna Harvey. I watched this on the Syfy app.

Obviously, these are not all of the movies I have seen that fall into the horror comedy genre, but they are some of my favorites! Are there any I didn’t mention that you think I might like? Let me know! I love movie recommendations!