Horror and comedy don’t mix

Anyone who’s read enough of my movie reviews has noticed a trend: I don’t like funny horror movies. I like comedies. I like horror. I just don’t like the two combined.

That isn’t to say that I need horror movies to be wall-to-wall grim. I’m fine with a horror movie that has a sense of humor. For example, the “his dinner’s in the oven” line from Fright Night is one of my favorite horror movie moments. Even in a situation that doesn’t call for jokes at all can occasionally benefit from a little wit, such as when the demon in The Exorcist offers to take a message for Father Karras’s mother.

I’ve even been known to enjoy horror parodies. Young Frankenstein is a particular favorite. But parodies don’t really count, because they play primarily by the comedy rules and don’t really aspire to be a horror picture on top of the funny stuff.

So when the whole thing is supposed to be a farce and a scare at the same time, that’s when we start running into trouble. I think the problems are caused by two things.

First, a lot of horror comedies are made by talentless dolts, people (guys mostly) with lifetime memberships in the “idiot with a camera” club. Such “artists” can’t make a funny comedy or a scary horror movie, so for some reason they think if they combine the two that everything will come out okay. Needless to say, it doesn’t.

But more than that, the two genres tend to violate each others’ rules. Comedies are supposed to be cinematic safe spaces, experiences where we can rest assured that – even if there’s some mild peril along the way – everything is going to turn out okay in the end. Indeed, the original definition of “comedy” was that the work wouldn’t turn out to be a tragedy. For example, some of Shakespeare’s comedies aren’t funny at all. They just don’t end with everyone dead.

You can’t make that promise in a horror movie. Good horror is very much a campfire experience, a blend of myth, social commentary and cautionary tale. One needn’t take them dead seriously, but on the other hand one can’t really laugh them off and at the same time enjoy them on their own terms.

Does that tell us something about the nature of bad movies?