Horror and Comedy As Successfully Merged Genres: Analytical Essay

This essay will argue how the combination of both comedy and horror genres have been successfully merged. It will also demonstrate how merging these genres has helped make the movie franchise Scream (1996) by Wes Craven a success. Success, for the purpose of this essay, will be measured by how comedy is used within the films narrative effectively, the popularity of the movie within society (resulting in sequels), award nominations and financially in box office takings.

As Vander Kaay and Fernandez-Vander Kaay (2016) explain horror and comedy are an unlikely partnership, at opposing ends of the ideological spectrum. Comedy wants you to experience pleasure, to enjoy yourself, yet horror wants the audience to endure, survive and encounter something distasteful and unpleasant, you become a different person once the experience is over. Yet the sub-genre is successful because horror and comedy evoke similar reactions from an audience. Humour stems from unexpected surprise (it is funny because it was not expected) and awkwardness (when something is uncomfortably funny) but these two aspects comprise of what scares people in films. Surprise transforms into shock, the instants that startle you because they are so unexpected and awkwardness which becomes dread in a horror context. “Thought their goals might be different, comedy and horror are working with the same to principles” (Vander Kaay and Fernandez-Vander Kaay 2016, p. 56).

Indeed, Prohászková (2012, p. 134) states that “horror is a varied genre that is hard to be defined by one single definition. And therefore, the most accurate is the one that defines horror through each of its categories and its sub-genres”. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s the slasher sub-genre was popularised with well-defined attributes and tropes. “A maniac with a knife slaughtering a group of young, good-looking teenagers in a myriad of gruesome ways” with the movies being “notoriously devoid of grown-ups” (Rockoff 2002, p. 5-11). Add in the enigmatically disguised killer(s); rural location and a long dark night to create a creepy, grave-yard like atmosphere, mixed with the fear of the unknown and it equates to the perfect recipe for a slasher movie. These movies are best characterised by films like Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). The sub-genre was revived in 1996 with Scream (Menard, A. D., et. al. 2019) involving human antagonists portrayed as masked killers who are troubled evil souls, contrasted by the noble ‘pure of heart’ protagonist teenagers who are being murdered because of sexual promiscuity, drug use, social deviance or as a repercussion of someone else’s actions.

However, when outwardly incompatible genres are mixed, like comedy and horror, movie producers need to be cautious to deliver coherent and fulfilling work (Miller and Bowdoin Van Ripe 2016). Yet, Scream produces much more than just ‘coherent, fulfilling work’. It breaks the horror mould by adding comedy to the mix of the slasher sub-genre whilst challenging the stereotypes attached to it. One way the film does this is by ridiculing the genre tropes (Maslin 1996) and challenging them, with constant intertextual references to other popular slasher movies and references to ‘the rules’. These rules are based on John Fiske’s theory (2016) that genre creates a pattern: that viewers are conditioned to recognise elements of specific genres and associate these elements with them. For example, whilst watching Halloween at the party Randy (who works in a video store and is a horror film enthusiast) tells his peers about the rules (these are the elements expected within basic slasher horror films. If anyone breaks the rules they die). “1. You can never have sex. Big no, no. Big no. Sex equals death, okay”. Sidney has sex with Billy yet survives for the sequels (all 4 of them). “2. Never drink or do drugs. The sin factor. It’s an extension of number one”. Randy drinks beer at the party and survives. And 3. Never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, say “I’ll be right back” ‘cos you won’t be back”. Stu says this before he goes to the garage to get some beer and comes back. Even when Sidney receives a phone call from the killer ‘Ghostface’ asking her if she likes scary movies she replies, “What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door. It's insulting”, challenging the identifiable traits of the genre and mocking them. The irony is that the teenagers in Scream are re-enacting a typical slasher genre movie. This is emphasised by the constant intertextual references to slasher films and the mirroring of the characters slasher trope actions in Scream. The movie Halloween plays on the television at the party which emulates Sidney and Billy’s interaction in the bedroom.

Additionally, the hybrid sub-genre also utilises the expression of comedy and horror to question the underlying cultural tensions (Miller and Bowdoin Van Riper 2016) “of power, danger, desire and anger” that girls faced in the 90’s. Scream challenged customary interpretations of femininity by promoting positive female friendships (between Sidney and Tatum) and altering the concept of women being viewed as ‘weak’ and needing ‘saved’ by the typical white male hero. Scream demonstrated that the protagonist could be a female with bodily strength that matched their male antagonists and along with other film and television shows such as Clueless (1995) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), encouraged a wave of female empowerment (Rowe Karlyn 2003, p. 177-199).

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Furthermore, the horror and comedy genre combination in Scream paves the way for an emotional roller coaster of unease and discontent because comedy is used to lull the audience into a false sense of security and safety (Gordon 2017), so they do not suspect when another killing is about to happen. At Stu’s party his girlfriend Tatum goes to the garage to get more beer from the fridge. A rake falls on the floor, which makes her jump and puts the audience immediately on edge, but this feeling is dispersed when the cat runs out through the cat flap in the electric garage door but when Tatum tries to return to the party the connecting door is jammed. She opens the electric garage door to get out, but the door starts to jam then close again. When she turns around to try the connecting door again ‘Ghostface’ is there, but Tatum assumes it is just one of the party guests playing a prank. She is very self-assured and sees this situation as posing no threat to her at all and manages to convince the audience of that too. She walks up to ‘Ghostface’ and says mockingly, “Oh, you want to play psycho killer?”. Ghostface gives a sinister nod and the audience know at this point that the comedy is shifting back into horror, yet Tatum is still oblivious to the fact that her life is in danger. “Can I be the helpless victim? Please don’t kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I want to be in the sequel” she chimes, before realising it is not a game.

Indeed, the camera angles used is this scene tell the audience of Tatum’s impending death. The fact that ‘Ghostface’ is looking down on her from the stairs shows a clear sign of dominance, height and weight advantage. Tatum is looking up at ‘Ghostface’ and is shown as the vulnerable, small caged prey ready to be toyed with. In this scene the comedy is spoken, the horror is within the mes-en-scene, but this is reversed when Tatum tries to escape out of the cat flap, visually it is comedic, yet her audible screams of horror imply otherwise.

Moreover, comedy is used within Scream successfully to throw suspects off track and draw the audience’s attention to subtle clues. Indeed, when Randy and Stu are in the video store Randy is calling out Billy as the killer. He is animated about this and attracting attention from other teenagers in the store, but Stu seems to find his theory amusing. When Randy turns around Billy is behind him and the atmosphere immediately changes from animated banter to tension. The camera angle changes to a close up shot of Randy’s face to emphasise to the audience just how tense and awkward he feels, the audience can relate and feel it too. Billy questions why Randy thinks he is the murderer and is not happy about being accused. Stu finds the whole scenario amusing and, coming from behind, puts his elbows on Randy’s shoulders, smirks and pings his ear. Comedy is used in this scene to enable the audience to question Stu’s reaction because it is not normal. Usually if you are caught bad mouthing someone you are sheepish and embarrassed but Stu revels in Randy’s discomfort and makes the audience question if Stu is possibly unhinged and if his comedy characteristics are masking his psychopathic tendencies.

Certainly, at the end of the movie Stu is hysterical and psychotic, bleeding to death but still trying to joke about the murders in a manic and frenzied way. When Sidney escapes from the killers she reverses the situation back onto Stu and calls him on the house phone in the same way he had called her as ‘Ghostface’ - Stu: “Did you really call the police?”. Sidney: “You bet your god damn sorry ass I did”. Stu (whinging voice): “Ohhhh. My mom and dad are gona be so mad at me”. Comedy has been used successfully to feed the narrative of his story as Stu is portrayed as the hyperactive teen: the irritating comedic one of the group, but he progressively gets more intense throughout the film. The horror/comedy elements are combined perfectly as he is one of the ‘Ghostface’ killers and comedy has been used as a means of disguising his true identity.

Indeed, the success of Scream at the box office and in popularity is renowned. Until 2018 Scream was the highest grossing slasher film making over $173 million worldwide (Hallenbeck 2009). In 1997 it was nominated nine times for various awards, scooping up seven of those nominations, one of which was ‘Best Movie Award’ (IMDb 2020). The popularity of the already established cast, combined with the comedy element, presented Scream as a new genre of slasher movie. It appealed to those who previously would turn away from horror movies thanks to the infusion of comedy within the movie and paved the way for four sequels, parody movies and an array of copy-cat films to be produced.

Overall, this essay gives a detailed explanation of how successful the combination of horror and comedy work together both within a film: driving the narrative and adding unexpected dark humour to a sub-genre that would not normally be associated with laughter and in addition, commercially with successful profit margins. Furthermore, the winning of awards acknowledges the popularity and acceptance of the hybrid mash up within this film allowing it to set the bar for other horror comedies (and their hybrid sub-genres) to come. The numerous comedy horror films made after Scream and the continuation of their creation today, in 2020, plus the demand for them and their persistent popularity, illustrate just how successful the combination of these two genres are and remain to be.