The 10 Best Horror-Comedy Movies Of All Time

It is a fine balance when combining genres such as horror and comedy. With Keenan Ivory Wayans’s Scary Movie, the film tends to lean into the comedic aspect, though there are some fun chills along the way. Scary Movie is a parody film, taking on no less than a dozen different films in a send-up that will truly leave you laughing.

The horror comedy stars Anna Faris as Cindy Campbell, who, along with her high school friends, find themselves mixed up in murder and mayhem surrounding the high school. The film leaves no stone unturned in its attempt to grab laughs. The film was such a success that it spawned four more sequels, but none of them enjoyed the success as this one did.

Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell turn The Evil Dead franchise on its horror-comedy head with the third film in the Evil Dead franchise. Campbell returns as Ash (ego and all) as he finds himself trapped in the Middle Ages after being sent through a time portal created by the Necronomicon in Evil Dead II.

After being mistaken for one of Henry the Red’s men, Ash, along with a captured Duke Henry, are taken back to the castle of Lord Arthur. The one-liners begin to fly from the mouth of Ash at regular intervals and while getting a sense of Evil Dead dread, the laughs provide a nice relief. Ash is now on a quest to get back to his time, so he is off to retrieve the Necronomicon to make it happen. Groovy and Hail to the King, baby!

This 1986 remake of the 1960 film (and 1982 off-Broadway musical) offers a trifecta of fun with its horror, comedy, and music. The horror isn’t so much scary, but fun, and the comedy speaks for itself. The film stars Rick Moranis as Seymour Krelborn, a nerdy nobody who has a thing for his co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene). Both are employed by Mr. Mushnik in his flower shop. Unfortunately for Seymour, Audrey is dating the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello, played over-the-top by the hilarious Steve Martin.

The cartoon horror is ramped up a notch or two when Seymour buys a plant during a solar eclipse and names it Audrey II. The plant immediately withers, until Seymour accidentally cuts his finger, prompting Audrey II to wake up wanting to be fed. Human blood. Audrey II then begins to grow but needs more and more human blood to keep growing.

Michael Keaton brought Beetlejuice to life in this 1988 Tim Burton horror-comedy that also starred Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder. The story follows a young married couple, the Maitlands, (Baldwin and Davis), who tragically perish after moving into a new home. Although they are no longer physically alive, their spirits live on in the home. When a new family moves in, the Maitlands do their best to frighten them out of the home.

Unable to scare the new family out, the Maitlands then turn to Beetlejuice, a dark spirit who has his own reasons for wanting to help the Maitlands. Tim Burton cranks up the laughs and frights while taking the leash off of Keaton and letting him work his comedic magic as Beetlejuice.

Gremlins is a horror-comedy film written by Chris Columbus (The Goonies, Young Sherlock Holmes) and directed by Joe Dante and tells the story of a strange creature, a mogwai, that is brought home to teenager Billy Peltzer. Mogwai’s have rules and Billy finds out the hard way what happens when the rules are broken.

Zach Galligan stars as Billy, who has been entrusted with Gizmo, the Mogwai. Billy has been extra careful to follow the rules (don’t expose it to light, don’t let it come in contact with water, and whatever you do, don’t feed it after midnight), but when his young friend accidentally spills water on Gizmo, things get bad real fast. Five more mogwai spring out from Gizmo’s back, and instead of them being gentle, docile creatures, they turn into Gremlins from hell.

Phoebe Cates joins Galligan and Gizmo as they try to contain the gremlins, when their leader, Spike, jumps into the pool at the YMCA, creating an army of mischievous and deadly gremlins.

Horror and comedy come together with a good amount of gore in a film that marked the directorial debut of Drew Goddard in a film written by Goddard and Joss Whedon, the two who worked previously together on Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The film follows a small group of college students who head to a “cabin in the woods” for a weekend of fun, but instead, become victims of different monsters.

The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchinson, Fran Kranz, and Jesse Williams as college students who find themselves locked in a battle with an evil older than time, but one that is being manipulated by unknown forces. The movie gives a sly nod to numerous familiar monsters while tossing in some laughs along the way.

Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock are all represented in this fantastic horror comedy about a zombie plague that has taken over the world. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin star, respectively, as four survivors trying to make their way across the country to the Pacific Playland in Los Angeles, where it’s been said it is a haven from the zombies.

The action is inventive, as are the zombie kills, which also provide many of the laughs. Bill Murray plays himself in a great cameo as the four head west. Also, one of the other running gags is the list of zombie “rules” that Columbus puts together on how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) are two dimwitted redneck hillbillies who have just purchased the vacation home they’ve longed for – a rundown cabin deep in the West Virginia woods. The problem for them begins when a large group of college students, who are on their way to a weekend camping in said woods, mistake Tucker and Dale for killers.

The laughs are played up big time in this horror comedy that also doesn’t back off on the gore. The trouble begins for Tucker and Dale when the college students go skinny dipping nearby where Tucker and Dale are fishing. One of the students, Allison, gets startled by them, hitting her head. The boys save her, only for the remaining students to think that she is being kidnapped by Tucker and Dale. From there, it is one gory misunderstanding after another as bodies begin to drop at a regular pace.

Before the thoroughly entertaining television series of the same name premiered, there was a brilliant horror comedy film, What We Do in the Shadows. The film is the brainchild of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, both of whom also star in the movie.

The film tells the story in a documentary style as a camera crew follows four vampires who are housemates in Wellington, Te Aro, New Zealand. It shows their day-to-day as they prowl the streets looking for victims. One of the vampires, Deacon, has a familiar (a human handler) who also brings the vampire’s victims as well as cleans up the gore they leave behind. The film is more played for laughs than anything. Both the film and the TV series are highly recommended.

Shaun of the Dead is another zombie apocalypse film that expertly combines elements of horror and comedy. The film was written by Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible franchise) and Edgar Wright, who also directed the movie and stars Pegg and his oft-times co-star Nick Frost as two buddies living in London who end up being caught in a zombie infestation.

Pegg plays Shaun while Frost is Ed, two men who have no clue where they are going in life. They are also very slow on the uptake that a zombie apocalypse is going on around them until they two in their backyard garden and end up having to defend themselves. Shaun and Ed then try to gather their family and friends to fight off the oncoming hordes of zombies.