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Horror and Humor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2010

Noël Carroll
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Summary

During the last decade or so, the subgenre of the horror-comedy has gained increasing prominence. Movies such as Beetlejuice, a triumph of this tendency, are predicated on either getting us to laugh where we might ordinarily scream, or to scream where we might typically laugh, or to alternate between laughing and screaming throughout the duration of the film. One aim of this genre it would appear, is to shift moods rapidly – to turn from horror to humor, or vice versa, on a dime. Gremlins (both versions), Ghostbusters (both versions), Arachnophobia, The Addams Family (both versions), possibly Death Becomes Her, and certainly Mars Attacks and Men in Black are highly visible, “blockbuster” examples of what I have in mind, but the fusion of horror and comedy also flourishes in the domain of low-budget production, in films like Dead/Alive as well as in the outré work of Frank Henenlotter, Stuart Gordon, and Sam Rami.

Nor is the taste for blending horror and humor restricted to film. The recently discontinued daily comic strip by Gary Larson, The Far Side, consistently recycled horror for laughs, as do the television programs Tales from the Crypt and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And even the usually dour, intentionally deadpan television series The X-Files makes room for comedy in episodes like “Humbug.”

Likewise, Tom Disch's recent novel The Businessman generates humor by sardonically inverting one of the fundamental conventions of the horror genre – representing a ghost who is stricken with disgust by the human she is supposed to haunt, rather than the other way around.

Type
Chapter
Information
Beyond Aesthetics
Philosophical Essays
, pp. 235 - 254
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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  • Horror and Humor
  • Noël Carroll, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book: Beyond Aesthetics
  • Online publication: 19 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605970.016
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  • Horror and Humor
  • Noël Carroll, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book: Beyond Aesthetics
  • Online publication: 19 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605970.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Horror and Humor
  • Noël Carroll, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Book: Beyond Aesthetics
  • Online publication: 19 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605970.016
Available formats
×