Metahorror Comedy Wrap-Up
Normally we love spoiling the hell out of movies. Not today though! Today we’re just recommending more of our favorite metahorror classics and modern gems. Read on, free of spoiler anxiety.
We started this month off at the holy shrine of metahorror, Scream (1996), unpacking the film’s critiques of misogyny, gaslighting, and male violence against women. Then we followed up with 2009’s iconoclastic Cabin in the Woods, which was simultaneously an homage to and a rebuke of the endless sequels, remakes, and reboots defined by predictable plots and stereotyped characters that had come to dominate the horror genre at the time.
After that, we offered up a comparison of the original Fright Night (1985), with its subtle camp and playful nods to classic horror, to the film’s terror-fueled, action-oriented remake in 2011. And then we jumped ahead to 2020 with the whiplash-inducing teen metahorror romantic dramedy Spontaneous and a reflection on how the film depicts personal and national trauma and condemns a political establishment unwilling to protect the lives of children amid mass school shootings.
There’s a whole lot more great metahorror out there. We wouldn’t even say we gave you the greatest hits--how could we with just four movies? So today, we’re tossing out a list of a few more of our favorite metahorror classics and modern gems. Still not an exhaustive list, of course, but a good starting point if you’re looking for more.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Streaming on HBO Max as of 5/1/2021
Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street
In the sea of teen slashers that dominated much of the ‘80s, Wes Craven’s nightmarish classic stands apart from the crowd. Rather than another silent, unstoppable stalker in a mask, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) makes quite a loud first impression. He scrapes his finger blades against boiler room pipes. He elongates his arms to inflatable-tube-man lengths. He jokes and banters with his prey before licking them through the phone. Above all, when Freddy hunts, he has fun.
In the franchise’s debut, Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) and her friends are his targets, each of them somehow connected to the scarred boogeyman’s past. Each kill and scare roots itself in the mind through their iconic, disturbing imagery--so much so that Wes Craven pays homage to that first death ten years later in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.
Despite the film’s campy leanings, the heaviness surrounding the characters, both teenaged and adult, is striking. Though Nancy and her friends view Freddy’s nightmare terrorism as a real threat, their discovery of how he fits into their lives reveals a subtext of repressed sexual trauma (which the 2010 remake makes explicit). The parents, when they’re actually around, are negligent, skeptical, or too busy with their own issues, like Nancy’s alcoholic, divorced mother, to pay attention to their children’s emotional turmoil. As the body count grows, so too does the edge of the film’s pointed critique.
While the original Nightmare is perhaps the least “meta” of the films included in this list, the film does become recontextualized in some inventively self-aware ways a decade later with the aforementioned New Nightmare. Before bringing Freddy into the real world, do yourself a favor and watch the original first.
Ready or Not (2019)
Samara Weaving as Grace in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Ready or Not
When Grace (Samara Weaving) marries Alex (Mark O’Brien), she expects a blissful wedding night with her new husband. But an ancestor of the wealthy Le Domas family that she’s just married into made a dark pact a long time ago, and instead of relaxed celebration, Grace soon finds herself forced into a deadly game of hide-and-seek. As Grace fights to survive the night, she starts to learn more about who she married and the family she had hoped to join.
A newlywed spin on Richard Connell’s classic 1924 short story, The Most Dangerous Game, later adapted as a 1932 film and as a 1964 novel, Ready or Not comes with a dash of slash and a very slight Lovecraftian touch toward the end. This is smart horror comedy with playful camp and sharp social commentary. Its ability to balance occasionally over-the-top gore with critiques on capitalism and absurd wealth and the deconstruction of Grace’s wedding dress amount to a smart and funny slashfest.
The team behind Ready or Not has reportedly signed on to make the next installment of Scream. If anyone can take up Wes Craven’s mantle for a fifth chapter (and soft-reboot) in the much-beloved franchise, it’s the people who gave us this beauty.
The Dead Don't Die (2019)
Streaming on HBO Max as of 5/1/2021
Zombie Iggy Pop in Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die
The critics weren’t especially receptive to Jim Jarmusch’s bizarre and simultaneously under- and overstated metazombie slow burn. Neither were audiences. As of this writing, the film has a 54% on Rotten Tomato’s Tomatometer and 38% Audience Score. But we’re going to humbly disagree and steer you toward this underappreciated gem.
Jarmusch has a melancholy and almost alien aesthetic and sense of humor. The more you just let go and take The Dead Don’t Die on its own terms, as very direct and unsubtle commentary on humanity’s nonplussed attitude toward slow-moving impending doom brought on by our own recklessness, the happier you’ll be--sort of, we guess.
And if the intentionally on-the-nose social commentary doesn’t do it for you, just enjoy the particular quirkiness of Jarmusch’s casting: Bill Murray, Carol Kane, Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver, Rza, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, and Selena Gomez. And if you watch it but still don’t like it, that’s fine. We have a feeling this is all going to end very badly anyway.
Eating Raoul (1980)
Paul Bartel, Robert Beltran, and Mary Woronov in Bartel’s Eating Raoul
Streaming on HBO Max as of 5/1/2021
We’re not quite sure that Paul Bartel’s giddy cannibal comedy (it’s not a spoiler if it’s in the title) counts as horror. And modern audiences are likely to be put off by the film’s cavalier treatment of sexual assault. But if you can, we’d recommend sticking with this one. In fact, that cavalier treatment is actually at the heart of the best argument that this is a horror film.
Eating Raoul gives us two anti-heroes in Paul and Mary Bland, a pair of sexually repressed, money-grubbing, materialistic murderers. The Blands live in a New York City reimagined to reflect and satirize a particular worldview, in which every person is a sexual deviant and a criminal and every man is a sexual predator and potential rapist. The “horror” of the film comes directly out of that paranoid and hateful worldview. And also out of, you know, the cannibalism.
But for all that, Eating Raoul is more silly and absurd than it is horrifying. It’s about a one out of ten on the gore scale, and there’s absolutely zero suspense in how or when most of the Blands’ victims will be killed. Instead, the film leans into slapstick treatments of murder, sexual assault, and cannibalism. It works well for the killing and people-eating, but the presentation of sexual assault is troubling at times. Nonetheless, if you can compartmentalize, Eating Raoul is worth your time.
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Bruce Campbell in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2
More of a remake of Sam Raimi’s 1980 original than a sequel, Evil Dead 2 lives in the pantheon of metahorror comedy, alongside several films on this list. It doesn’t indulge in many direct references to classic horror like Fright Night, released two years earlier, nor does it comment directly on the horror genre like its descendants Scream and Cabin in the Woods, but the film is intensely self-aware.
This is thanks in no small part to Bruce Campbell’s delightfully over-the-top performance. Campbell, as Ash and just about every role he’s played since, is constantly winking at the camera and looks like he’s having great fun being beaten and bludgeoned and crawling through whatever nastiness Raimi, his childhood pal, tells him to crawl through.
Where Evil Dead tried to be a serious horror movie with a dose of humor, Evil Dead 2 is a masterful blending of camp, comedy, and cosmic horror. The original is undeniably great, but this sequel or remake or hybrid or whatever is a work of pure genius that every horror aficionado should be legally required to watch at least once.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Streaming on HBO Max as of 5/1/2021
Lucy Davis, Kate Ashfield, Dylan Moran, Simon Pegg, Nicola Cunningham, and Nick Frost in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead
Simon Pegg is an expert at playing a loser. Shaun of the Dead, the first entry in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy launched English filmmaker Edgar Wright, as well as Pegg and his co-star Nick Frost, from BBC obscurity into self-aware, geek stardom.
Shaun (Pegg) remains painfully unaware of the global and personal problems surrounding him, misinterpreting every obvious sign sent his way. Where there had once been ambition in his life, Shaun now embodies the essence of a slacker, going through the motions of his dead-end job, getting blitzed at the Winchester, and playing videogames with his flatmate, Ed (Frost). As Wright portrays him, Shaun is pretty much undead already.
Though many of the antics are played to great comedic effect, the film isn’t without an emotional core. Shaun, as a self-perpetuating loser, must lose, lose, and lose again. As a viewer, these losses hurt, because we know people like Shaun. Perhaps we are Shaun. Maybe we’re not planning to hole up in a pub, “have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over,” but perhaps we’re engaged in a similar state of self-destruction.
But in a winking moment near the start of the film, Shaun explains over the phone that his coworker, “Ash is, er, feeling a little bit, erm, under the weather.” With this subtle nod to Evil Dead, we’re being told no one’s gonna charge in with a chainsaw and boomstick to solve Shaun’s problems. Only Shaun can chuck the Batman soundtrack at a zombie’s head. Only Shaun can shuffle and mumble through the rotting hordes of Crouch End to save his ex-girlfriend. And only we can learn to save ourselves.
Serial mom (1994)
Streaming free on Peacock as of 5/1/2021
Kathleen Turner in John Waters’ Serial Mom
Satirizing American obsession with true crime, this John Waters film follows the Sutphins, a seemingly stereotypical family unit living in the suburbs of Baltimore. We quickly learn, though, that matriarch Beverly (Kathleen Turner) is anything but your typical suburban housewife and mother. Not following her rules can be, well, deadly.
Serial Mom has a knack for objectively bad effects that are endlessly fun to watch, especially in light of Turner’s gleefully murderous performance. Like Jim Jarmusch, John Waters has a, shall we say, very unique aesthetic. But where Jarmusch is melancholy, droll, and deadpan, Waters is bawdy, indulgent, openly offensive, campy, and very intentionally low-brow in the absolute best way possible.
Whether Serial Mom counts as horror or not is debatable, but Waters’ clear nods to the genre and his general genre-agnostic approach to filmmaking are good enough reasons for us to include the film here.
Even More Metahorror
Daniel Kaluuya in Jordan Peele’s Get Out
Here’s a short list of several more of our favorites: