There are plenty of moments in horror films, intentional and unintentional, where things are rib-ticklingly hilarious. Absurdity and horror are closely intertwined. How many times have you been in an utterly appalling situation, yet somewhere deep inside you, you wanted to laugh to relieve the tension? Sometimes it might be a moment where something so strange and inappropriate happens that it causes you to giggle. One cinematic moment that springs to mind is from Paul Schrader’s Cat People when the cat corpse of Malcolm McDowell is rolled out of the mortuary drawer, and for some reason, the leopard’s tongue is sticking out of its mouth. One can’t help but think of Malcolm McDowell’s character sticking his tongue out at John Heard from the red sands of the Were-Cat afterlife. The tongue is so pink it almost looks like a cartoon. It’s lol-inducing but off-putting at the same time. That’s the vibe we’re going for here.
I must also issue a SPOILER ALERT. I directly discuss plot details from various movies below, so naturally, I will be tossing spoilers out left and right. Come on, don’t be scared. A little spoiler never hurt anyone!
This is by no means a definitive list, but it does include some really f*cked-up and truly priceless moments. Maybe eventually, in true horror fashion, I’ll create a sequel.
Society – The Butthead
Society is a horror social satire directed by Brian Yuzna, in which the Beverly Hills elite are a secret cabal of non-human creatures capable of morphing their body parts together while performing a ritual called The Shunting. The ceremony is how they eat by draining human beings of their nutrients. One moment from the film comes in a close second for this list, where a character named Dr. Cleveland’s head turns into a giant hand as he asks the predictable question. It’s one hell of a Dad joke. But the film’s crowning achievement is The Butthead. Billy finds his parents and sister indulging in an incestuous throuple made even more disturbing because their bodies are fused together. He finds his father under a sheet, his face where his anus should be. The film was made in 1986, so it predates Goatse [a shock website featuring an infamous photo of a man stretching his anus] by about 11 years. But the ridiculous shock of seeing a literal butthead telling Billy that he is truly “a butthead” always makes the audience roar with laughter.
Re-Animator – Head
You might be sensing a theme here. Many of the weirdest and wildest horror movies are on this list. In Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon’s modern-day take on H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Herbert West: Reanimator” takes the concept and shambles away with it. Jeffrey Combs’ masterful portrayal of the crazed West is legendary, but this particular moment happens between David Gale as Dr. Carl Hill and Barbara Crampton’s Megan Halsey. Hill is obsessed with Megan, the beloved girlfriend of Herbert West’s comrade in reanimation, Dan Cain. Hill is so obsessed that even as a reanimated corpse [SPOILER!] he has his undead minions kidnap Meg. He’s a sex pest from beyond the grave and decides to consummate his lust the only way he can. Since he’s a talking head, I think you can guess what I mean. Only Stuart Gordon would go there, and this horrifying moment is interrupted by the arrival of West, who distracts Hill with a comedic insult routine. It is so fearless and appalling and thus one of the most shocking moments in horror comedy. To its credit, it never turns into sordidness, even though it is a rape scene. Barbara Crampton’s performance (she is an angel in this film), keeps that from happening.
Gothic – Look Into My Eyes
Ken Russell was undoubtedly a king of banana pants English filmmaking. Even in his somewhat more conventional, non-horror films, things still get freaky and frightening. In The Devils, a lost scene known as “The Rape Of Christ” has kept the film out of general home DVD release for 40 years. Yes, Warner Brothers is still mad about that. Gothic is a fictionalized retelling of the Shelleys’ visit to Lord Byron. The mad hatter’s opium party on the shore of Lake Geneva, if you will. The one that led to the birth of Shelley’s Frankenstein and the literary antecedent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula “The Vampyre” among literary luminaries Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley. It is a delicate moment of horrific comedy. When Percy Shelley (Julian Sands) approaches Mary Shelley’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont (Miriam Cyr). In a farcical twist on the familiar “look into my eyes” women have used to warn men to stop looking at their breasts, Claire directs Percy’s gaze, “Down here.” To Percy Shelley’s horror and our shocked laughter, her nipples are, in fact, eyes that open wide when he looks at them. It’s frightening and funny and the ultimate kick in the eye at men who can’t look a woman in the face.
Rubber – Serial Killer Tire
French director Quentin Dupieux has been making very strange films for some time. His sensibility has always been weirder than most. Dupieux’s absurdist horror film Rubber focuses on Robert, a tire, who also happens to be a serial killer thanks to psychokinetic powers. Robert started small, with a beer bottle and a rabbit, while a captive audience in the desert watched him through binoculars. I told you Dupieux was weird. Then Robert graduates to human beings and starts exploding heads anytime someone annoys him. The head explosions are quite good, so fans of Scanners will be pleased. Unfortunately for the players in this open-air film, Robert witnesses a man throwing his fellow tires on a bonfire. The next scene bears the title card, “3 days later,” but the moment is a scene with a series of no less than twelve people with exploded heads. The fact that these are obviously dummies with some blood and viscera on the ground and the sheer number of corpses makes it hilarious.
Deadstream – Crotch Chomp
Deadstream is one of the funniest and most enjoyable found-footage horror films. The goop flies everywhere. There is a moment when a ghost demon head explodes with a neon-colored clotted material all over the erstwhile hero Shawn Ruddy’s face, which looks an awful lot like someone popped a giant pimple. However, it’s all about the Crotch Chomp. Shawn spends a lot of time screaming and he’s really good at it. In this particular scene, Shawn is screaming for help, while clutching a sheet around him for protection. He begs for forgiveness for his many peccadillos, and as he reaches the zenith of his oratorio, the ghost demon queen’s head pops between his legs, shouts GUILTY, and takes a huge bite out of his huevos. Ouch. I don’t know if that’s the ghost demon poetry psycho’s version of smashing the subscribe button, but it could be.
V/H/S/2 “Safe Haven” – Exploding Guy
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of exploding on this list and there’s a reason for that. In “Safe Haven”, the utterly batshit Lovecraftian segment directed by Gareth Huw Evans (The Raid, Apostle) and Timo Tjahjanto (May The Devil Take You, V/H/S/94’s equally batshit segment “The Subject”), has a lot of really screwed up things in it. A room of men simultaneously shoot themselves in the head, a man who had been tenderly ministering to an older woman is later found having rough sex with her, happy children turn into demons, a pregnant woman suddenly comes to full term and starts birthing a massive monster. But the crescendo of the film is when the cult leader, almost naked with symbols carved into his flesh, celebrates his seeming moment of triumph. Just as the hero thinks he’s done for, the cultist explodes in the hero’s face. Yeah, that’s really not what any of us was expecting, which is why it’s so funny.
The New York Ripper – Ducky
Jim Branscome of Cinematic Void has referred to the New York Ripper as the most nihilistic Giallo ever made, and he’s right. There are a lot of really fucked up things in this film, and director Lucio Fulci’s entire catalog, but even worse than the scene where a dude uses his dirty toes to pleasure a woman under a table is the fact that every time the psychotic killer commits a murder or calls the police to taunt them about the woman that he’s just sadistically murdered, he does so in a Donald Duck voice. This isn’t just one moment, it happens multiple times throughout the film, every time the murderer surfaces. It’s truly abhorrent because the killer doesn’t just do the voice, he also quacks. Additionally, the film has a strangely jaunty film score by Francisco de Massi. The New York Ripper drips with a New York sleaze that could only come from Fulci’s brain, and that’s what makes it really special.
Evil Dead 2: The Eyes Have It
Evil Dead 2 remains one of Sam Raimi’s most uninhibited comedy horror romps. The film has a lot of surreal and unmistakably messed up things going on. Ash’s hand becomes possessed and beats him up. The room full of trophy animal heads becomes animated and laughs in cartoon voices at him. But, for my money, nothing beats the eye. While the granny demon is beating up all the men in the room, Ash takes charge and his solution to the problem is to jump down on the cellar door which causes the demon’s eye to be ejected out of the skull with an audible POP sound. It’s the sound that gets me every time. Then you see the viewpoint of the eye heading towards the open mouth of the screaming Bobbie Joe and a side view with a trail of viscera behind it flying through the air, and then you see it go right into her mouth. It is simultaneously the most disgusting and laugh-out-loud funniest moment in the film. Sam Raimi’s mind is truly diabolical.
A Wounded Fawn – End Credits
Travis Steven’s third brilliant feature is an art horror shocker that will really bend your mind. The most fucked up moment is about eleven minutes long and takes place under the end credits of the film. When Josh Ruben’s jocular serial killer Bruce has finally been defeated by the Eryines and the sole survivor of his rampage, Sarah Lindish’s magnificent Meredith looks on. Ruben defiantly refuses to admit what he’s done to the end. In that very male way, Bruce refuses to take responsibility for his actions and starts stabbing himself in the neck with his ritual weapon to avoid admitting his evil deeds. He would literally rather die than be seen as culpable to a woman. The scene goes on and on and as it does, the funnier it gets. Just when you think he’s dead, he stabs himself repeatedly. The sheer audacity of the scene raises this to a masterful level of fucked-up artistry.
Jason X – The Campers Who Won’t Die:
Everyone knows that Jason Voorhees loves to murder campers who like to have fun. In Jason X, the filmmakers clearly said to themselves, “Hell yeah, let’s send Jason into space,” and then proceeded to go for the gusto. Jason, already an unkillable killing machine, is accidentally turned into a mecha-Jason who is now even more indestructible and powerful. You can tell because his mask is now metal. Some of the greatest kills of the series are in this film, and not just because the first kill is none other than director David Cronenberg. Naturally, the ship’s crew that finds Jason is filled with a bunch of hedonistic space-age horndogs. Those horndogs and their supersmart android protector put Jason in a virtual reality recreation of Camp Crystal Lake, where he’s greeted by two hot chicks in underwear uttering hot-button phrases like, “Hey, do you want a beer? Do you want to smoke some pot?” And then there’s the one thing that’s sure to send Jason into a killing frenzy “We could have premarital sex! We love premarital sex!” Never has a slasher franchise more successfully sent up its own mythos, and never has it been funnier.
Bonus round:
Slaxx – Influence this
Slaxx is a film about a possessed pair of murderous pants, so it’s got something really unique going for it, no matter what. While it undoubtedly utterly scares the pants off you, sorry, Slaxx is naturally hysterical. I mean, it’s a pair of fair trade, ass-shaping jeans, murdering everyone in sight. The moment involves a current favorite target of horror films — an influencer. Slaxx was released in 2020, so it was a bit ahead of the curve with the current influencer massacring trend. Youtuber Peyton (Erica Anderson) is self-involved, self-important, and over-the-top cutesy. She pretends to be friendly, but she’s really one nasty human being. The pants sneak up behind her while she is vapidly extolling the fake virtues of the company’s product on camera and strangle her so hard they break her neck. *trills* Perfection!
