Laughter is an unadulterated response, an emotion that only you can and cannot control. Humor is subjective, but a laugh makes it objective. The old adage of explaining a joke as being akin to dissecting a frog is true. Revealing why something is funny can unintentionally kill the joke. Contrarians beg to differ and think that to understand a joke is a chance to laugh even more. You don’t need to be a comedian to laugh; you just need a sense of humor.

What’s more important than the joke is the matter you’re laughing about. Comedy involves situations or stories, relatable and unexpected, that become amusing or entertaining. The genre is subversive, making its way from character traits and into other film categories, most notably action and horror. Hanging off a precipice with a precarious grip is both intimidating and comical. No one likes being in harm’s way, but one may admit when it doesn’t hurt them, they find relief at the expense of someone who is. Horror comedy follows the same path, but in an overt and perverse way. The same mythologized path of a group of lemmings lined up to fall to their death, Looney Tunes style.

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A Modest Disposal

     Empire International Pictures

Running gags are not immune to comedy or horror. The Sunday funnies (fellow Peanuts Charlie Brown and Lucy’s football prank and pratfall) take a respite from the Lord’s Day of rest by waking up our awareness with humor. In The Princess Bride, Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) uses the exclamation, “Inconceivable!” to express frustration with his thwarted plans by unannounced forces. The meaning of the word is used incorrectly, as a self-aware Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) points out to its privy audience. The events had to be conceived for them to happen, making this moment a double-whammy of comedy.

In slasher movies, the trope of the final girl features her stroke of resourceful or serendipitous survival based on her moral self-control that her friends-turned-victims lacked. Sex, drugs, and carelessness are punished while good deeds are rewarded in an ignorant, cruel world. Horror comedy takes the best of both worlds, delving into the recesses or gutters of the mind to bring forth a blunt, damning, and sober view of the serious through meaningful mischief.

Re-Animator exhibits a Frankenstein God complex with medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs). He brings the deceased back to life with a reanimating agent. He ignores the repercussions of his miraculous scientific discovery, which present controversial issues like the sanctity of life, mercy killings, and animal cruelty. West also demonstrates speaking ill of the dead, fearless of karma or comeuppance.

Black(er) Comedy

     United Artists

It can be irreverently blue or absolutely taboo, but there is always a crowd that enjoys riding the nerve with black comedy. Rather than a point of entry for sensationalism, laughing at serious topics has been a cathartic albeit double-edged sword. The growing pains of puberty can be a personal bit of body horror, Michael J. Fox in Teen Wolf knew that all too well. Motel Hell takes a satirical approach, too with a sinister sadism.

Farmer Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) and Ida Smith (Nancy Parsons) are the proprietors of Motel Hello. They “check in” their guests who are unaware that the building is a front for their secret garden of human harvesting. The Hotel California turns people into meat products! Vegetarians don’t know whether to scream or cheer; it’s enough to turn carnivores into vegans.

There is a method to the madness: the cannibalistic killings and posturing could be referring to the problems of food waste and corporate farming malpractices. Whatever your palate, your stomach will turn at the way we think of and consume food with a twisted love letter to Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Laugh Yourself to Death

     Rosebud Releasing Corporation

Under its veil of darkness, horror can be filled with poignant social commentary. Night of the Living Dead used ghouls or zombies as a metaphor to cite the racism and senseless violence against African Americans throughout the 1960s. Comedy makes light of grievances and gripes (our own Little Shop of Horrors) that occur in everyday life. Evil Dead II embraces the fun-loving mischief that is reminiscent of the superstitious lore behind Halloween and overcomes the fear of death. Remaining conscious with a conscience allows the sub-genre to infiltrate with and rehabilitate indifference and produce and preserve differences.

Laughter is the best medicine. Studies show that people who laugh more tend to get sick less. Horror comedy gives way to thoughtful laughter about the atrocities and animosities that exist in the world. These unfortunate events invoke contrast and shock to our mundane existence, just as the unexpected punchlines of a joke would. By exposing ourselves to the discomfort and truths of reality, we don’t numb ourselves, but rather embolden ourselves to understand and face reality. Horror comedy dares us to laugh at death and celebrate the life we have because life is too short to be killed off sooner. Unless it gets a laugh, then you live as you died: morbidly funny.