Full disclosure, this isn't a real movie. But damn it, it should be!
I once met actor Doug Bradley (of Pinhead fame) and I'll always remember his suggestion that horror and comedy were two sides of the same coin. Both rely on timing and surprise, and both are judged in quality by what kind of feelings they provoke in the audience. But as similar as they are, they're not the same. And it takes a master of both to have any hope of ever blending them into that rare success story called the horror/comedy.
Do something for me, Google "best horror comedies" right now. Go on. Look at the list that comes up. Out of those titles, how many of them legitimately qualify as both horror films and comedies? "Young Frankenstein" was a comedy. Period. "Ghostbusters" was a comedy. It had some jump scares, but it was definitively a comedy. "Fright Night" was a horror movie; humorous elements, yes, but it wasn't a comedy. "The Lost Boys", horror. "Beetlejuice", comedy. "Scary Movie 2", neither. And "Gremlins" was just kind of that thing that sort of happened in the eighties.
See, I'm a proud comedy snob. I find bad comedy tedious (i.e. most of Jim Carrey, and all Happy Madison productions). I have a bit more tolerance for bad horror movies, probably because they still have the chance of transforming into unintentional comedies. But for me to consider something a good horror/comedy, it really has to do something special; "Happy Death Day" is my go to example.
So what's all of this a preview to? Well, I got to thinking about the horror films that most people agree are masterpieces, and what makes them so. Funny thing, even though Universal churned out a whole bunch of black and white monster pictures back in the 30's, the movies that people really cite as being the apex of horror tend to come from the 70's. But the comedy giants all seem to come from the black and white period of film. Maybe horror really needed to be born on film (the Dracula/Wolfman period) and given a chance to grow up, while comedy got to reap the benefit of having matured throughout the vaudeville circuit.
It's probably a conversation best saved for another time. The point is, I had this bizarre thought exercise to take classic film comedians and mix them into some of the popular post-classic horror films and see what kind of explosion might occur. Here's the result: an anthology-styled horror movie (similar to "Creepshow", or "Tales From the Crypt") made up of six one-reel segments, about twenty-two minutes each. Obviously we're still a few years away from reanimating dead performers so stand-in talent will have to fill some huge shoes, but that's a studio thing. I'm just here to describe the movie to you until someone steals the idea.
1. Gone to the Dogs (based on "An American Werewolf in London", starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello)
We'll kick off the proceedings with something familiar. Abbott and Costello are no stranger to horror, having tangled with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. Usually regarding a comedy duo the straight man drives the plot and the comic delivers the flavor. I haven't had a vast experience with Abbott and Costello, but from what I've seen it's always been Costello as the engine while Abbott usually stands on the side and lobs in the variables to trip him up. So with that in mind we need a story that places them on unequal footing.
The duo are traveling through England and stop in a pub, just like the original. It doesn't take too much confusion with English idioms for Costello to get them both thrown out. They're attack by a werewolf; and being a horror/comedy, Abbott is killed. Costello in infected and taken to a nearby hospital (you know the drill).
From there it's a sequence of the hyperactive Costello having to come to terms with the fact that he's a legitimate threat to innocent bystanders. But being Lou Costello, invariably he would take on more domestic dog-like traits than ravenous wolf. He's not a killer, but he's capable of infecting people. The rest of his story follows his attempts to get himself locked away, all while dealing with Abbott's apparition trying to guide him. Characteristic wordplay routines ensue, and in the end Costello is taken to the pound, presumably after turning all of London into a pack.
2. Wacko (based on "Psycho", starring Charlie Chaplin)
We now turn our attention to Alfred Hitchcock, who knew how to decorate his thrillers with some hilarious material but couldn't seem to get a straight up comedy off the ground. Here we use Charlie Chaplin's little tramp character to retell "Psycho" the way Gus Van Sant should have -interestingly.
Chaplin was a master of pathos, and Norman Bates was oddly sympathetic. It might be odd seeing him as the story's killer but we're doing dark comedy. In this version, it's revealed from the get-go that his mother is a corpse (oh, sorry, spoiler alert) and we get to see Norman's daily routine of having to run a hotel while remaining oblivious to the fact that she's dead.
The plot beats are pretty much the same as the original except that his 'mother' persona is more directly involved, meaning Chaplin has to keep doing quick changes to maintain both guises. We have to believe that HE believes he's actually two different people. After Marion Crane is killed and people come looking for her, he has to up the ante by also playing her as if she's still alive. This leads to a complicated slapstick chase through the hotel where he's finally apprehended and taken to the station. But unlike the original, Chaplin's Norman escapes custody because he also thinks he's the psychiatrist at the end and delivers the closing monologue so convincingly that Marion's family don't realize they're still talking to Norman.
3. Diet and Exorcists (based on "The Exorcist", starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy)
Stan Laurel honestly never needed a partner, you can do a Youtube search for 1925's "Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde" for evidence (one of cinema's earliest examples of parody). But for whatever reason, he attached himself to Oliver Hardy and who am I to argue?
We jump right in; a little girl demonstrates possession by a demon, and our duo are the priests assigned to exorcise her. As with everything they've ever tried to do, they're ineffective. Each attempt winds up hurting Ollie and damaging property. As the girl becomes more antagonistic a classic L&H tit for tat battle escalates, sending Hardy tumbling down the fire escape stairs.
It's turns out the girl has been lying; there was no demon, she just didn't want to get dragged to school or church or whatever kids got dragged to in the 20's. But she convinces Laurel that the demon has left her and gone into him. He goes to tell Hardy, who characteristically overreacts, and all hell breaks loose on the city streets involving every pedestrian and delivery truck in sight. I'm not sure exactly how it ends, but the legendary "fine mess" Laurel has "gotten them into" will probably be worse than purgatory, probably dead and locked outside Heaven's doors until they figure out how to get rid of the demon that isn't actually there. Well, that's certainly darker than I usually go.
4. Yawn of the Dead (based on "Dawn of the Dead", starring the Three Stooges)
We need a palette cleanse after that one, so we turn to the Stooges. As impulsive and chaotic as they are, I find the trio very hard to root for unless they're actually fighting for something noble. For that we turn to George A. Romero's blueprint of zombie survival in a mall while having to protect a pregnant woman.
This segment is not all that plot heavy. It's the Stooges turned loose in a shopping mall having to fight off a zombie hoard using whatever is available; I should think the bits essentially write themselves. I think the real question is whether or not they live. Invariably they'll succeed in saving the pregnant woman's life, but it doesn't seem particularly Stooge-like if it's a happy ending all around.
Probably it makes the most sense for Curly to get bitten by a zombie but the transformation doesn't have any effect on his personality. Larry would get himself infected by finishing off a half eaten hotdog that he procured from Curly, and Moe would accidentally get bitten by one or both of the other two in the middle of a Stooge brawl (and then blame them for it).They're about to transform fully and start eating each other when it's revealed to be just a nightmare that Curly's having. It turns out everything is fine when out of the blue Shemp walks in. Moe asks him where he's been, and he takes the trio outside to see a UFO floating above them.
5. A Night at the Slaughterhouse (based on "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", starring the Marx Brothers)
You know, I'm tempted to just leave out the description entirely because I can't think of anything else that would effectively shuffle horror and comedy together better than those fifteen words. The Marx Brothers were subversive; particularly Groucho, whose characters were always active members of the very establishments he was destroying. Unlike most comedic troupes who inflicted anarchy through incompetence, the Marxes knew what they were doing. Theirs was the comedy of equalizing, dragging the upper crust down to the pig pens where the peasantry dwelt.
Overlaying the Marxes on top of Massacre's Sawyer family (here referred to as the Hungadungas) isn't all that much of a stretch. Harpo is obviously Leatherface, mute and unstoppable. Groucho fills the role of the service station proprietor/active patriarch. Chico is the enigmatic hitchhiker. And grandpa, who's barely in the film, would be the long overdue appearance of the Gummo on film.
But as turbulent as dinner with the Marx Brothers would no doubt be, we still need a minimal excuse to stay on their side. For that let's revise the victim count. They aren't just average teens who breakdown in the middle of nowhere, but Kardashian-like reality stars who get stuck between private airports. We, as the audience, tolerate bad behavior from the Marxes; partially because their targets deserve it to a degree, but mainly because they're entertaining enough to make us abandon our ethics. At the end of the segment, the lone survivor escapes on a passing truck with a driver who looks suspiciously like Zeppo. She tries to summarize the events she's endured, listing off the family members, to which Zeppo repeats the famous line "You've left out a Hungadunga. You've left out the main one, too." He gives a knowing wink to the camera and the story ends.
6. I Am Legend Jr. (based on "I Am Legend", starring Buster Keaton)
Closing out our anthology is a genuine silent black and white segment, homaging everything from "Nosferatu" to "Halloween". Keaton is in the Robert Neville role, the last human alive in a world of vampires. Just like in the Richard Matheson novel, Keaton is both the victim in his perspective and the predator from the perspective of the vampire community. He resides in a mansion with all the science stuff, while the vampires 'live' in a castle at the other end of town.
We skip straight to the arc where he meets the partially infected woman and tries to figure out how to cure her. What follows is a back and forth infiltration/kidnapping where he keeps trying to bring her back to the mansion while the other vampires retrieve her and chase him off. Eventually the vampires get the upper hand and try to execute Keaton. Simultaneously the woman (who's been left alone in Keaton's mansion) has the chance to look through his notes. She realizes his intentions were never harmful and goes to rescue him.
A chase scene with multiple sight gags across town later, and the woman is finally able to defuse the situation with the vampires. They collectively forgive Keaton and all decide to move into the mansion with him. It takes mere seconds for him to realize that suddenly being thrust into a huge populous is going to make him miserable. So he dons his hat and heads to the now empty castle to live alone. A bittersweet happy ending, but undoubtedly the best note to go out on.
No comments:
Post a Comment