Halloween is my favorite holiday.
One of my fondest childhood memories is running around the neighborhood in my zombie costume on a crisp fall night. lt is one of my earliest memories of being free to do what I wanted without adult supervision.
Halloween encourages people to experiment. Not artistic? Not creative? Make something crappy and mundane. Nobody cares!
Feel the urge to make something weird or dark? Do it!
Halloween also doesn’t have the downsides of some of the other major holidays. There’s none of the forced good cheer of Christmas/Thanksgiving or the religious glurge of Easter.
I’ve also loved the genre of horror comedy movies for similar reasons.
Horror comedies tackle all sorts of grim topics: death, aging, war, environmental destruction, familial dysfunction, to name a few.
But horror comedies never take themselves too seriously. They’re creative, and absurd, and funny.
If the genre were a person, it would say “Yeah, death may come for us all. But let’s not be a sad sack about it. Come, let’s laugh in the face of death for a while.”
So, to celebrate the Halloween spirit, here’s a list of thirty one of my favorite horror-comedies.
To get on this list, they must have the following traits:
1. Enjoyable. Don’t expect “The Godfather”, but I found all of these movies worth watching at least once.
2. Lighthearted. While some of the movies are quite gory (Dead Alive, for example) it’s all cartoon gore. No “Martyrs” or “A Serbian Film” on this list.
3. Funny. While some of the films are more horror than comedy, each of these films made me laugh at least once.
Note, I think most teens (12+) would be fine with most of the movies. Young kids (under 12) and sensitive folks might find some of them too scary.
