8 of the best horror comedy films of all time

a scene with Return of the Living Dead, with two people standing over a corpse on an operating table with its hands tied — ‘Return of the Living Dead’ is an iconic example of the horror-comedy genre

(Image credit: Orion Pictures / Handout / Getty Images)

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‘Return of the Living Dead’ (1985)
‘Evil Dead II’ (1987)
‘Dead Alive’ (1992)
‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004)
‘Black Sheep’ (2006)
‘Zombieland’ (2009)
‘The Cabin in the Woods’ (2011)
‘Get Out’ (2017)

Many of the most beloved horror movies have scenes, like Linda Blair’s rotating head in “The Exorcist,” that are so absurd they practically invite satire. But other horror films build the laughs directly into the narrative, seeking to frighten and amuse at the same time. Horror comedies are an ideal way for people who don’t really like scary movies to indulge their horror-loving friends and family during October’s spooky season.

‘Return of the Living Dead’ (1985)

Louisville medical supply workers Frank (James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Mathews) open a storage barrel and unwittingly unleash a gas that reanimates the dead as shuffling, brain-hungry revenants in director Dan O’Bannon’s cult classic. They burn one of the zombies, which causes poisonous rain to fall on a nearby cemetery, unleashing total chaos. Soon Freddy’s girlfriend, Tina (Beverly Randolph), shows up at the graveyard with a group of punked-out goofballs in tow and they all fight for their lives. A movie that “makes up for its lack of gravitas or well-developed characters by just being delightfully, deliriously fun,” it remains the “quintessential ’80s zombie movie,” said Jim Vorel at Paste Magazine. (AMC+)

Whether it’s a sequel, a remake or in Bruce Campbell’s words, a “requel,” director Sam Raimi’s follow up to 1981’s “The Evil Dead” is almost a genre unto itself. The movie begins with a recap of the first film, after which archaeology students Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend, Linda (Denise Bixler), head to the same isolated cabin, where they unwisely play a tape of the previous owner, Raymond Knowby, reciting passages from “Necronomicon Ex-Mortis” (The Book of the Dead).

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Ash then decapitates a possessed Linda and does battle with both her head and, in perhaps the film’s most memorable sequence, her severed hand. Ash and some new friends fight the dark force until a unique conclusion that includes time travel in an Oldsmobile 88. The film offers “such a unique and singular vision that, though the style is often imitated, it has never been equaled,” said Brian Keiper at Bloody Disgusting. (HBO Max)

Lionel (Timothy Balme) tries to keep his overbearing helicopter mom, Vera (Elizabeth Moody), in the basement of their house after she is bitten by a “Sumatran rat-monkey” at the Wellington Zoo and turns into a ferocious zombie. At one point she eats his girlfriend Paquita’s (Diana Peñalver) dog. The couple try to keep Vera in check by administering tranquilizers, but their containment efforts predictably fail. Director Peter Jackson, who would go on to helm the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, contributes “something genuinely fresh to the rotting genre” and creates a “movie which fans and non-fans alike will find enormously entertaining,” said Jennie Kermode at Eye For Film. (Youtube)

Simon Pegg is Shaun, an aimless, twenty-something retail worker barely hanging onto his exasperated girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield). When she finally cashiers him after he fails to come up with an anniversary plan better than returning to The Winchester, his favorite pub, he and his best mate, Ed (Nick Frost), get so bombed that they barely notice the zombie apocalypse that begins unfolding around them. The action eventually gets genuinely scary and poignant as Shaun and Ed try to rescue Liz and Barbara (Penelope Wilton), Shaun’s mom. A “post-modern masterwork,” the film has the “audience laughing and gasping and recognizing some obscure reference from start to finish,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Peacock)

Sharing the deranged New Zealand sensibilities of “Dead Alive” — the tagline is “There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand, and they are pissed off! — director Jonathan King’s hilarious film follows Henry (Nathan Meister) who discovers that his brother, Angus (Peter Feeney), has been conducting grotesque genetic modification experiments with Dr. Astrid Rush (Tandi Wright) at the family sheep farm. When one of the mutant sheep is released by environmental activists including Experience (Danielle Mason), they must work together to prevent more people from being turned into the film’s singular sheep-zombies. That this “odd, amusing” film turns a “notoriously docile, none-too-intelligent species into a source of menace” is an “impressive, if improbable, feat of filmmaking,” said A.O. Scott at The New York Times. (Tubi)

In the post-apocalyptic wasteland two months after a zombie epidemic wiped out most of civilization, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a college student sporting an elaborate list of 33 survival rules, is en route to Ohio to look for his parents when he hitches a ride with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), who takes great pleasure in his zombie kills. They are waylaid by con artist sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who eventually agree to team up to reach a rumored safe zone in Hollywood. A movie that “focuses on the comic possibilities of four misfits indulging their most cherished fantasies under the bleakest circumstances imaginable,” its propulsive “fun proves infectious,” said Nathan Rabin at The AV Club. (Peacock)

In a rote set-up now so familiar as to be beyond cliche, five attractive young adults including Dana (Kristen Connolly), Marty (Fran Kranz) and Curt (Chris Hemsworth) head for a remote cabin for a weekend of partying. Soon they’ve inadvertently awakened a family of zombies and our heroes start getting picked off one by one after the obligatory sex scene. But then director Drew Goddard pulls the rug out from underneath the audience and the characters with a twist that shall not be revealed — but suffice it to say that there’s more going on here than yet another “Evil Dead” rip-off. This “horror-inflected black comedy is a playful riff on the ‘last girl’ slasher movie,” which doubles as a “dystopian fantasy” said Dana Stevens at Slate. (Hulu)

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is traveling to an upstate New York estate for a meet-the-parents jaunt with his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), in director Jordan Peele’s instant — and controversial — classic. Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener) at first seem like relatively harmless wealthy white parents, but Dean’s nervous declaration that “I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could” soon takes on a more sinister meaning. Chris notices odd behavior from the house’s Black staff, who have been hypnotized into a “sunken place” where their minds can be controlled by their white tormenters. The film brilliantly “borrows tones and archetypes from horror movies and thrillers” to show us “what it’s like to be a young black man in the United States today,” said Richard Brody at The New Yorker. (Hulu)

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David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of "It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics." He's a frequent contributor to Newsweek and Slate, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic and The Nation, among others.

‘Return of the Living Dead’ (1985)

‘Evil Dead II’ (1987)

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‘Dead Alive’ (1992)

‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004)

‘Black Sheep’ (2006)

‘Zombieland’ (2009)

‘The Cabin in the Woods’ (2011)

‘Get Out’ (2017)