Best Horror Comedy Movies
Like chocolate and peanut butter, Comedy and Horror fit quite well together. Both genres set the heart to racing, albeit for entirely different reasons. Even the most serious of scary movie directors recognizes the power of a good laugh, if only to unbalance the audience for the next jump-scare.
Best Horror Comedy Movies as of 2025
There are a wide variety of horror comedy movies. Some lean more towards comedy than horror, satirizing the genre conventions. Others are played straight, with a thin layer of dark comedy amid the scary stuff. The following list of movies tries to honor both approaches.
Theatre of Blood (1973)
For his retirement season, legendary stage actor Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart staged a selection of the greatest works of Shakespeare. His shows were savaged by the critics, who favored more modern fare. Two years after his apparent suicide, Lionheart returns to seek revenge on his critics. What is more, he seeks to kill them in showy displays based on the Shakespearean works they disparaged.
Vincent Price is the king of campy horror comedies. While his turns as Dr. Phibes and Dr. Goldfoot are rightly remembered, many believe he peaked with Theatre of Blood. While Lionheart is undoubtedly an egomaniac, he is still far more sympathetic than the critics. Half the fun of the movie is watching them getting their just deserts after the jokes they cracked at Lionheart’s demise. The other half comes from the gloriously hammy Shakespeare recreations, which are doubly amusing if you’re a theatre fan.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced Fronk-en-steen) is one of the world’s most prominent physicians. Despite this, he cannot escape the shadow of his infamous grandfather, who sought to reanimate the dead. However, after being summoned to inspect his grandfather’s castle, Frederick finds evidence his grandfather was was not so mad a scientist as reported. With the assistance of Igor (pronounced Eye-gore), the Young Frankenstein will soon be following in his grandfather’s footsteps (prounounced “vallowing een ees gandfodder’s vootshatps!”)
While intended to spoof the classic Universal Frankenstein movies, Young Frankenstein went above and beyond emulating their aesthetic. It is generally agreed to be the best movie made by both Gene Wilder or Mel Brooks. While funny, it is also has a serious story to tell, and generally unfolds at a sedate pace. However, when it goes over the top, as in the famous “Putting on the Ritz” scene, it does not hold back.
Student Bodies (1981)
A crazed killer known as The Breather is targeting sexually active teens in a small town. However, rather than the usual knives and chainsaws, paper clips and trash bags are his weapons of choice. It falls to good girl Toby Badger to uncover the truth, even as she becomes the prime suspect in the increasingly weird murders.
At a time when slasher horror was just coming into its own, writer/director Mickey Rose saw potential. With Student Bodies, he sought to do to the slasher what Airplane! did for disaster movies. Critics hated it, but the film made its money back and more. Ironically, it also developed a cult following among fans of the genre it lampooned.
Evil Dead II (1987)
The original 1981 Evil Dead elevated Sam Raimi to superstardom in horror circles. No less an authority than Stephen King praised the film with a rave review. This helped it to secure a wide theatrical release in 1983. Raimi had planned to move on to other projects, but his publicist suggested a sequel would be a good idea. Rather than repeat himself, however, Raimi elected to put a more comedic spin on the original movie’s story in Evil Dead II.
Bruce Campbell returns as MSU student Ash Williams, planning a romantic getaway at a remote cabin with his girlfriend Linda. Unfortunately, the cabin’s previous occupant was an archeologist who was trying to translate the Necronomicon. Soon, Linda is demonically possessed and the dead are rising from the grave. Worse yet, Ash is caught between them and the rest of the archeologist’s research team, who think he killed the professor.
Evil Dead II cranked up the gore along with the comedy, delivering as both a Lovecraftian horror show and a slasher satire. The joke of a hero fighting a severed hand had been done before, but never been so well executed as under Raimi’s direction. This scene came to define the Evil Dead franchise and Raimi’s beloved brand of bloody hilarity.
Scream (1996)
Wes Craven was one of the most prolific slasher directors of all time. His trademark was mixing humor in with the horror and defying convention. No movie managed this quite so well as the original Scream.
The movie is set in the small town of Woodsboro, California. It is here that a serial killer known as Ghostface begins targeting the local teens. While the killings are inventive, what truly set Scream apart from other horror movies was the intricate plotting and complex characters.
The feud between student Sidney Prescott and reporter Gale Weathers is a prime example of this. Both women seek the truth behind the killings for drastically different reasons. However, they both only see half the puzzle, due to their own deeply held beliefs. It was this level of detail that helped lead Scream to spawn a long-running horror franchise.
Cherry Falls (1999)
A mysterious woman is killing teenagers in the little town of Cherry Falls. However, in defiance of horror movie conventions, her targets are all virgins. When word of this gets out (despite the best efforts of the local sheriff) the teens seek to deal with the problem logically by throwing a huge orgy. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s daughter starts her own investigation into the killings and a dark secret the village elders have hidden for over 20 years.
Today, Cherry Falls is better known today for the post-production issues that ultimately led to it being dumped on basic cable. Chief among these were the movie being singled out before it was released as typical of the horror movies that were blamed for inspiring school shootings. This is unfortunate, as Cherry Falls is a masterclass in satire and irony. Of particular note are Brittany Murphy and Michael Biehn playing parodies of the usual ‘final girl’ and ‘beleaguered sheriff’ stock characters.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)
Countless horror movies are built around the idea of the rural killer. Feral and frequently inbred, this subclass of slasher lives to terrorize every unfortunate urbanite who has a car break down. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil turned this subgenre on its ear, making two good ol’ boys into the heroes of the picture.
Tucker & Dale are two well-meaning rednecks, trying to repair a cabin in the woods. Their efforts are interrupted when a group of college kids intrude on their fishing. Their efforts to save one woman from drowning are taken as a kidnapping, leading to a series of unfortunate, accidental and hilarious deaths.
How we chose the best Horror Comedy Movies
Variety was the watchword in assembling this list of the greatest horror comedy movies of all time. Movies were chosen across a wide stretch of time, with a focus on classics that have stood the test of time. However, an effort was also made to highlight more obscure films that, while not as famous among casual genre fans, deserve a bit more attention.
Source: Comingsoon.net