Horror and comedy are two of the most difficult genres to nail, while also being the two quickest to age poorly, and the most noticeable to get wrong. What makes a person laugh and what makes them afraid are extremely subjective, leading some to find humor in other people's worst nightmares.
There's a long and rich history of horror comedy films that manage to land jokes and scares within the same experience. However, ask any given fan about the hardest they've ever laughed during a horror film, and they'll probably explain a scene that was carefully crafted to be terrifying, only to turn out hilarious.
Night of the Lepus
Throughout the 50s and 60s, giant animal movies were ubiquitous to the point of mockery. The typical object of terror in those films were insects, but just about anything could be expanded to incredible proportions and turned into a movie monster. In 1964, Australian science fiction writer Russell Braddon crafted The Year of the Angry Rabbit, a satirical horror comedy that revived the nation's tradition with the genre. Eight years later, MGM and William F. Claxton set to work making a film adaptation without an ounce of the comedy that made the book work.
Instead of intended gags about nationalism and the military-industrial complex, Night of the Lepus is funny because it's a mess of a film. The biggest laughs come from what should be the scariest moments. This film wants audiences to scream in terror at adorable bunny rabbits running amok in dollhouses. It feels like a cute YouTube video with spooky music laid over it. They even dab ketchup on the charming pet rodents' noses to look like blood. It's enjoyable, but for entirely unexpected reasons.
Spookies
In 1984, Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner, and Thomas Doran set to work on a film that was then called Twisted Souls. They shot well-over half of the film they had in mind before the tenuous relationship between the producers and the financial backers fell apart. As a result, the backer hired Eugenie Joseph to direct a fun new batch of footage. The eventual 1986 film was a Frankenstein-esque stitched-together monstrosity of a thing.
Spookies might as well be an anthology film, but there's very little delineation between one storyline and the next. The main characters are typical idiot teens. The most innovative decision of the film is the choice to go with just about every movie monster they could come up with. There are vampires, spider-women, zombies, octopus monsters, muck-men, and much more. Unfortunately, most of them are horribly executed. The muck-men make consistent farting noises, half of the monsters take actions that don't make any sense, and the film's grim reaper is a motionless statue. Said statue falls off of a balcony at one point and explodes inexplicably. It's a hilarious mess that's well worth seeking out. It's about as good a film as one could expect, given the circumstances.
The Happening
The works of M. Night Shyamalan have been duly taken to task for their innumerable crimes. Perhaps the funniest of his films is still his 2006 eco-horror epic in which just about every talented professional involved did the worst imaginable job. The acting is terrible, the script is inane, and the twist doesn't make any sense. Even the premise of the pathogen that forces its victims to commit violent suicide manages to be delivered with perfect comedic timing.
Despite The Happening's somewhat legendary reputation today, the reception at the time was mixed. Some critics really liked the film, despite its myriad issues. Roger Ebert thought that its biggest problem was being too thoughtful for the blockbuster season. None other than Stephen King considered it one of the best studio horror projects of its era. Despite the occasional praise, The Happening hits like a deadpan absurdist comedy with the occasional gruesome death.
Dreamcatcher
Speaking of King, the longtime master of horror has his own bizarrely funny attempt at horror cinema. He actually has a few, but Dreamcatcher feels the least in on the joke. The source material, King's 2001 novel of the same name, was written in the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident with the help of the prescription-strength painkillers he was taking at the time. It was originally titled Cancer and inspired by the fact that most people discover something's wrong while in the bathroom.
Lawrence Kasdan, the writer of The Empire Strikes Back, was behind the director's chair for this project. This likely proves that no one could've pulled something worthwhile out of Dreamcatcher. The story is unintelligible, with countless weird rules and pointless exchanges. The central monster is a disgusting worm-like creature that escapes its victims through the rectum, only to continue attacking others. It's gross, but not in the body horror kind of way. It feels like a bad sketch from an adult animated series. Dreamcatcher might not be the worst Stephen King adaptation, but it's one of the worst movies with his name attached. At least it's worth a laugh.
Malignant
When James Wan's bizarre passion project dropped last year, audiences were picking their jaws up off the floor. Major studio releases just don't look like this today. This feels like some crazy low-budget horror VHS someone found in a video store in the 80s. Specifically, it feels like the 1982 film Basket Case, because Malignant steals so much from that film it could almost pass as a gritty remake. Frank Henenlotter's magnum opus isn't the only point of influence, however. It's a riff on everything from Lloyd Kaufman to Dario Argento.
Malignant is a 111-minute question with no answers. Every major element is chaotic and unpredictable. Between the martial arts action, gross-out slapstick, and complete narrative nonsense, a lot is going on. Anyone with a passing interest in making horror movies should watch this. The film falls apart so aggressively that it offers a moving autopsy of the art form.