Horror-Comedy

Another horror-comedy-mystery in an old spooky house. This is the same Blondie you know from the Sunday comics, except she wasn't as nice and shapely as the drawings (which, admittedly, is the main reason I read the comics when I was 6, 7, 8 years old!). Blondie wants to have servants like the neighbors do, but cannot afford them because Dagwood cannot get a raise. His boss says Dagwood can act as caretaker of an estate house which does have servants which get Blondie excited. When the Bumsteads arrive at the home, spooky things start to happen and they suspect they are being chased off. Goofy, light-hearted, but not without a fright or three. Spoiler - he actually gets a raise at the end!

A rather funny horror film about a mad scientist and his loyal servants. In need of money, he sells his dilapidated home to a young lady on the condition that he can continue his experiments in the basement and the servants will remain to help around the place. Soon the new owner discovers a body and calls the sheriff. The sheriff has been wanting to rid the town of the scientist for quite some time jumps at the opportunity to arrest him, but after discussing the situation with the scientist the sheriff decides to invest in his experiments. The only problem is they need volunteers, and the last five have died. A really good screwball comedy with horror elements and Boris Karloff in a starring role.

I'm not sure why this wasn't titled Abbott and Costello Meet Dracula because they have a lot more interaction with Dracula than they do with with Frankenstein('s monster). If you are familiar with this comedy duo, then you already know the type of humor and some of the routines that are found in this old horror-comedy. Really nice to see Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr reprising their most well-known roles in this spoof.

Yet another horror-comedy-mystery, this time in a hotel. Bud Abbott's character, who plays a bellhop, is accused of murder. Sings keep pointing to him as the killer and he is fired from his job, but the investigators want to keep him in the hotel until it is solved, so they pay for him to stay as a guest as more body's keep piling up. Lou Costello's character keeps trying to convince the investigators that the bellhop couldn't have possible committed the murders because he is too stupid. Pretty funny, not necessarily better than any of their other works, but worth a watch.

Yet another horror-comedy-mystery that takes place in an old dark house with hidden passageways. A young woman returns from the Orient to see her father for the first time. She had been in boarding schools her whole life and brings a friend along for the visit. The first night they are there, the friend is killed in her room. The friend turns into a ghost and wants to know who killed her so she enlists the help of the person that gave them a ride to the hose earlier in the day, Cosmo Topper. When Topper is caught snooping around the hose, suspicion is cast upon him as the murderer. Lots of fun twists and turns and good dialogue.

Not to be confused with the terrible 80s musical by the same name. Jewish stereotypes abound in this comedy horror about a run-down flower shop. They have a special cross-bred plant that attracts a lot of customers. But the plant craves blood. So much better and with 1/100th budget of the later one everyone knows.

While it seemed as though their movies were diminishing in quality in their later years as a duo, this one has a lot of the freshness found in their earlier works. Once again paired with a classic Universal monster, the two are to be found in Egypt. They find a valuable ancient medallion and attempt to sell it to get plane tickets back home. Its much more valuable than they first realize and soon are pursued by different groups who want to retain it including a cult leader who revives the mummy. No rehashed routines that I noticed and this, despite being one of their last, could be a good place to start if you have yet to see any of theirs.

With so many lost opportunities for humor, this was a real disappointment for me. Hell, the original Invisible Man had some more clever gags than were used here. The best was saved for last with Bud in the boxing ring and the invisible guy helping him win the bout. The script really seemed rushed.

Holy crap this was awesome! An early horror comedy, maybe the first zombie-comedy (well, Ghost Breakers had one zombie in it, so I guess its a close call). Hilarious throughout - the character Jefferson Jackson was downright amazing in nearly every way. Timing was impeccable and the subject matter was right on. I would love to see this remade (and I already started casting - so far I have John Turatatino as Dr. Sangre and Renee Zellwegger as Barbara Winslow, but who could fill Mantan "Shit, if this is gonna be that kind of party, I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes" Mooreland's shoes?), but anyone who has seen this knows it could never be remade without some major changes. Definitely a period piece (the subtle anti-German propaganda really isn't so subtle), but it still retains everything it was trying to do all these years later. Two military men crash land their plane on an island in the Caribbean. An Austrian doctor lives on a plantation where he has many servants. Later it is shown they are actually zombies as he works closely with an island priestess to control them. Definitely a buyer!

A crime/suspense/comedy/romance/horror film starring Bob Hope. Hope's character thinks he kills someone, so he flees from the scene and ends up on a boat heading for Cuba along with his manservant. This manservant isn't as funny as the one in King of the Zombies, but as a whole the movie was really funny and had some parts that were sure to scare when it was released. Organized crime, a ghost, a zombie, a castle, slimy Caribbean characters, voodoo, and a pretty innocent lady inheritoress all play parts in this hilarious film. Probably the best Bob Hope film I have seen (no singing and dancing).

Another of the "scary old house" type. Maybe my favorite of all I have seen, much better than The Bat Whispers and somewhat better than Cat and the Canary (if only because Dark Old House is a "talkie" - I would like to see the 1939 re-make of Cat... for a more balanced comparison between the story-lines). The humor in this one was much more well-polished than others I have seen and remained in a good balance between the creepiness of this story of travellers who seek shelter in this mansion to avoid the weather hazards. The characters are well-crafted and acted in this rather short film (which was the style at the time).

An early horror-comedy that takes place in old mansion. Several people gather 20 years after a benefactor's death to hear the reading of the will to learn who will inherit the great fortune. People start dying; hilarity ensues.

Anyone who would be interested in this I am sure has already seen it. A great humor-filled zombie film with many references to film (especially Romero's zombie trilogy), TV (now that I have seen Spaced many more of the jokes are clear), and even video games. To really enjoy this you need to have an interest in zombie films and appreciation for British humor.

You know it. Peter Jackson's first. Outer-space aliens have invaded New Zealand for the express purpose of dining on human flesh. A crack government/military team (haha) is sent to investigate. They are soon in battle with the aliens in this hilarious gross-out scifi improvised delight. Don't expect LOTR, hell don't even expect Dead Alive - but this is still an absolutely wonderful film!

Great humor (often in the Zucker brothers style; maybe the writers viewed The Kentucky Fried Movie). The name really gives you plot and the rest of the movie is filled with sight gags and other zaniness.

A surprisingly good Hong Kong vampire movie, despite the lack of hopping vampires! One bad vampire wants to kill all the vampire princes, but one of the princes wants to date a human and some other ridiculousness takes place. But, somehow, it works! It does help that Jackie Chan has a small role in this modern action-filled vampire tale.

A zany comedy-horror-musical about a demonic high school baseball team that is legally allowed to kill on the field. The principal of a rival school decides to forfeit the season rather than facing these maniacs, but changes his mind when he spies an amazingly talented transfer student. Totally my kind of humor ? if you like Cannibal: The Musical or Happiness of the Katakuris, you will enjoy this film (which actually has very little baseball in it!).

A newer zombie comedy that succeeds in its intent. Not as good as Shaun of the Dead, but on par with Fido. Brief appearances by David Carradine, Diedrich Bader, and Potia de Rossi also enhance this film for me. The 20-somethings-trapped-in-a-weird-small-own-without-working-cell-phones scenario is old hat, but that just adds to the cheesiness. The characters actually reacted as I would imagine people would. References to Evil Dead, Psycho, Dead Alive, Thriller (yes the MJ dance number!) and others can been seen throughout.

A quirky take on the apocalypse/zombie flick.
Dim-witted (though handy with firearms) teenage girls
are the heroins as the genius scientists who prepared
for such an event slowly die.

THIS IS GREAT! An alcoholic zombie, a pterodactyl,
and a cowboy. Continuing from the previous film a
Cheers star has a part in this film - John
Ratzenberger's best role by far!

Been waiting for this for quite some time , and it ended up being everything I expected it to be. Bruce Campbell is kidnapped and brought to a small town to battle a Chinaman-demon gone mad. If you know Mr Campbell's body of work, you will understand this. If not, its your loss.

Funny parts, but not nearly funny enough for what
they were trying to do.

A sci-fi/horror with a lot of comedic elements. A teen couple are out late and see an asteroid hit the earth. When they investigate they find a strange acorn-like object and a local old man who has a small, strange substance on his hand. Later, when they visit the man at the doctor's office they see the same, now larger, substance consume the doctor so they attempt to warn the police. No one believes them, so they wake the whole town once they locate the substance which has now grown enormous. Very well-done, a buyer.

A former gangster opens a legit night club which is Caribbean-themed. The promoters get the idea to sell the idea that there will be a real zombie featured at the club. When a powerful reporter learns of this he wants to scoop, but promises that if its a fake zombie he'll ruin the club. The owner threatens to kill the promoters unless they can find a real zombies, so they head down to the islands to buy one. They find a scientist (played by Bela Lugosi) who specializes in zombie research. A lot of good comedy which would have been improved if Abbot & Costello replaced this duo. I probably could have given this another full point if it included the comic-timing of A&C. Watch this in tandem with Ghost Breakers and King of the Zombies.

An AMAZING film which needs to be viewed by all! On
many levels this is amazing! Now I get two South Park
references (Gooble-Gobble!, One of Us!). Real freaks
cast in this decent story of love and deception with
he members of a traveling circus. Here, watch it!

A not terrible horror/comedy with a total of three
locations for the whole film! About as good as Big
Meat Eater. The best set of breasts I have ever seen!
Seriously!

Musical, comedy, sci-fi, horror - none done too well.
Very off-the-wall and kinda amusing, but nothing to
seek out.

An animated horror-gangster-comedy with plenty of
nudity, sexual humor, profanity, violence, and ethnic
stereotypes. The artwork is a combination of Spy v
Spy and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Pro-commie sentiment
throughout, but entertaining nonetheles

Splatstick, not as good as Evil Dead II or Dead Alive, but in the same realm as Dellamorte Dellamore or RE-Animator

A Wes Craven flick that I actually liked. You have to
watch this through the right eyes (if you like The Lost Skeleton
of Cadavra, Monsturd, or Cannibal! The Musical) then
you would really like this. Cannot believe its rated
PG, though. Violence, cursing, boobs, etc. And
Adrienne Barbeau's boobs at that! Now I understand
what Capt. Murphy was talking about...

A decent entry in the zombie-comedy-Western
subsubgenre with Brian Posehn (Mr Show, "Metal By
Numbers")and Matt Besser (UCB). Cool idea, but not
done well enough (and too cheaply).

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would -
vampire story about a boy who thinks his neighbor is
a vampire.

A fish-outta-water horror! Genuinely funny at times
(reminded me a bit of The Visitors) and good
scripting - a horror movie where the characters didnt
make me want to kill them.

I liked this one. Creepy and funny. Not without heart.

Pretty funny - good camp. Nothing highbrow here at
all, but it never tries to pretend its something its
not, so its a winner for me.

A pretty decent zombies-on-island flick. Very low
budget, but maintained my attention throughout. Much
much better than most zombie flicks - on par with
Zombie Holocaust and Hell of the Living Dead. A
surprising amount of humor for a horror film from
this era.

A glam metal band is killed by a family in a small
town who turns out to be Hitler, Eva Braun (who looks
pretty hot despite being an old lady) and a variety
of freaks. The band is resurrected as zombies and
they turn Hitler and the rest into zombies and Hitler
parties with the band onstage and then everyone in
the town is a zombie except for two people and those
two gas the zombies. I must say Hitler picked a very
multicultural town to settle in and with whom he
seemed very comfortable.

More of a comedy than a horror in this continuation from the original. A miner returns from the arctic with a small amount of the blob that he found while digging. He wife takes out of the fridge and it soon consumes the couple. Like before, it continues to get larger with ever animal and human it consumes. A few dirty hippies were eaten, but not nearly enough. Some parts could be very scary if filmed with horror in mind, but it was timed alike a comedy pretty much all the way through. Enough laughs to recommend this one.

The direct sequel to Dracula which starts immediately after the original with Dr Van Helsing being arrested for murder. Starts out very comical and changes its tone after about 15 minutes in, but it never loses its more light-hearted approach. A rather explicit lesbian theme persists with the daughter seeking psychological help for her desires. I actually like this one a bit more than the original.

Bela Lugosi as a vampire in this mystery thriller which takes place in a castle in vague-Europe (kinda like Frankenstein ? never really specified what country its supposed to be). No one believes that it could be a vampire (until a professional vampire hunter arrives), so there is suspicion cast upon different folks as often is the case with these type of spooky-old-house films. Like most of these spooky-old-house films there is some humor placed throughout which makes this rather enjoyable, but I found the ending a cop-out (though rather common at the time to do so). Maybe Im reading to much into what I saw, but I think I saw the first lesbian-vampire hints here, even earlier than Dracula's Daughter

we have Bela Lugosi playing a mad scientist in this Ed Wood production. He's trying to make super-strength slaves and he has an octopus. This one has more sense than the notorious Plan 9, but still with all the ineptness which I don't believe was deliberate. These traits of absolute horribleness actually help to boost this above many of this genre during this period.

My expectations werent especially high for this Sam Raimi film, as I havent much cared for anything he's done post Army of Darkness. But I was pleasantly surprised and entertained throughout the film. It was well-written (my biggest pet-peeve with horror films are people reacting unbelievably to strange/scary circumstances) and edited so the story kept moving forward even during the slower parts. A loan officer gets a Gypsy woman angry, so she gets cursed. The humor you may have loved is present here, though not in the amount I would liked to have seen. Really good up to and including the ending (though kinda obvious, so I deducted a ½ point from my initial scoring).

Zombies have taken over and so people have to band together to defend themselves. But, not everyone is trust-worthy. The on-again, off-again group that the film follows travels across the country battling zombies. This was the final of three recent releases in my favorite cross genre which I had high-hopes for, but I think much of the potential in this one was squashed with sappiness and a typical Hollywood ending. Also, the whole movie I thought that was Michael Cera, but it wasn't!

Now this one I have been anticipating for quite some time. I was contemplating making a Nazi-Zombie marathon (Shock Waves, Zombie Lake, Oasis of the Zombies, Night of the Zombies, Horrors of War, and The Outpost ? if anyone knows of any I am missing, please inform ? well Hard Rock Zombies could count), but decided to watch it on its own as I am always looking for a good horror-comedy. The comedy was minimal, but well-placed ? it didnt take you out of horror of it all, and it actually added a degree of reality. Dead or not, there were some seriously poorly trained soldiers ? letting a couple of Nancy-boys work them over like this. Now we just need Worst Case Scenario and Iron Sky to be released!

There is a reason Ed Wood is so well-known, and there is more to it than just the notorious Michael Medved review. His movies may be horrible, but there is a charm to them that is not found in others of this era, style and quality. Cops are investigating an isolated house after the report of ghosts. An Aleister Crowley-like character lives in the house and spooky and funny things happen. Intentionally funny, these were meant to illicit laughter. (Incidentally, due to financial problems, this film was not completed until 1982, years after Wood's death.)

Don Knotts plays the brave coward well. He's a typesetter for the local paper and desperately wants to be a full-fledged reporter. When given the chance, his first assignment is the spend the night in a spooky old ?murder house? that is about to be demolished. His story of spooks in the house causes a sensation and he becomes a local celebrity, but there are also a number of doubting Thomasi. Funny and worth a watch. Maybe a horror-comedy only by the largest stretch of the term.