Don't scoff. You love horror comedies. You do, admit it. Maybe you don't even realize it. Perhaps you don't recognize a horror comedy when you see one. It could be that you haven't found the right fit for your tastes. Could it be you're afraid you might lose your horror cred if you laughed at the macabre. I'm here to tell you, you can admit it: Horror Comedy is great!
Of course dark, brooding, eerie, moody horror is your thing. Nobody is going to take that from you. No need to point your chin up at the occasional funny movie that plays in your sandbox. They can co-exist in blood-soaked harmony. No harm, no foul. Take a break. Have a laugh and then get back to all the brooding and bludgeoning. That's what life is all about.
You already like at least one horror comedy flick. I guarantee it. Almost certainly you've enjoyed Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a movie that has the best time having fun with all the tropes you love. Then there's What We Do In The Shadows, pairing classic horror movie monsters with the reality television format. There are the mainstream ones that you might not even realize qualify as horror comedy like Gremlins, Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice. The Addams Family and The Munsters, too! Perhaps the modern granddaddy of the horror comedy movies, Shaun of the Dead? Its an out and out lampoon of the tried and true zombie horror movie we've been watching since Romero set the ghouls out to get Barbara.
Speaking of granddaddies, have you heard of one of my favorite horror comedies of all time? Saturday the 14th. It was released way back in 1981 starring Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss and features a young (and still balding) Jeffrey Tambor along with the likes of Stacy Keach and Michael Berryman to name a few.
Saturday the 14th is a spoof of sorts. But, not on the movie named for the day before this flick. This is more of a fun homage to classic Hollywood horror monsters. A typical suburbanite family inherits their dead uncle's house. The house contains an evil book of magic unbeknownst to the family but totally beknownst to the vampire (Tambor) who want to run the family off and get his hands on the book himself. Of course, the son find the book before Dracula. When he opens it up and starts reading the pages inside he sets loose a panteon of movie monsters on the unsuspecting family (and on Dracula Tambor). There's a werewolf and a mummy. There's a creature of a dark lagoon (or in this case, a bathtub.) There's even an exterminator named, you guessed it, Van Helsing, who's hired to get rid of the bats in the attic.
Saturday the 14th shows its age. But, its not a movie that needs its good looks to prevail. This is a movie about having fun with movie monsters. When I first watched this as a kid, there were parts that scared the bejesus out of me but it was the laughs that kept me glued to the TV and got me through it. This is the movie that made me love horror. And yes, its a horror comedy that made me love horror. See, horror comedy is horror.
You're not going to discover this as a kid. But you should still check it out. As of the the release of this blog, you can find Saturday the 14th streaming free on Tubi, Peacock, Roku Channel and Amazon Prime Video. There's no excuse not to check it out.
And if you find you love horror comedy like I do, why not check out my horror comedy books, inspired by movies like Saturday the 14th. You can find them on Amazon, Kindle & Kindle Unlimited. Or you can buy signed paperback copies direct through my web site at frankedler.com. Use the coupon code: BUY3 at checkout to get any three books for $30.
