Horror and comedy thrive on two sides of the same spectrum. Without digging too deep into genre theory, a huge amount of comedy comes from watching someone else suffer in amusing ways. Slapstick mines physical pain for laughs, satire makes mincemeat out of its subjects, and theater scholars have literally spent centuries debating whether comedy can exist without someone suffering as the punchline.

In film, the relationship is even tighter. After all, a cinema is built around timing and tension, but no two genres play with the sense of buld-up and release with such similar structure as horror and comedy. Whether it's a scare set-piece or a great comedic bit, horror and comedy operate on pinpoint execution of mounting tension, precision timing, and ultimately, big payoff. In comedy, the payoff is a laugh. In horror, it's screaming, jumping and wincing. But in a great horror-comedy, it's both; a heady combination of physical and mental reaction that can make the scares scarier and the humor even funnier.

No wonder then that horror-comedy has long been one of the most popular and consistently high-quality subgenres in film. By combining the two, you end up with the perfect sleight of hand that makes each new trick pay off even better. Too busy laughing to remember to be scared? That's when the perfect horror moment will pop up. Too scared to remember why you were laughing? Then it's time for another bit of humor to let some of that tension out.

Without further ado, here are our picks for the greatest horror-comedies of all time, from the stone-cold classics to the newest gems of the 21st century.

Army of Darkness

Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness? Take your pick, they're both iconic, downright hilarious films from horror icon Sam Raimi. But for my money, Army of Darkness is easily one of the funniest movies of all time, which is why it nudged into this spot on the list. Bruce Campbell returns as Ash, the long-suffering Deadite hunter who spent two films trapped in a cabin in the woods with the undead, and by now, he's fully settled into the hamminess and physicality of the role, with the added bonus of an enhanced ego that makes Ash's buffoonery all the more hilarious. Easily one of the most quotable horror films ever made, with fountains of blood and even more of the franchise's signature stop-motion spookiness, Army of Darkness is an iconic benchmark of horror-comedy that's arguably only bested by its own predecessors. -- Haleigh Foutch

Re-Animator

If you love the otherworldly weirdness of H.P. Lovecraft but thought that dude should take himself a little less seriously sometimes, Re-Animator is the antidote you need. Based on Lovecraft's "Herbert West-Reanimator", director Stuart Gordon's mad scientist dark-comedy is an absolutely wild ride from start to finish, led by an electric lead performance by Jeffrey Combs as the dead-obsessed doctor himself. With bubbling beakers and mysterious serums galore, this one is for fans of Frankenstein and Evil Dead all at once. By the time it builds, body by body, to its zany climax, you'll have a pretty good idea why Re-Animator originally received an X-rating. -- Vinnie Mancuso

Killer Klowns From Outer Space

They are not actually clowns (or klowns) but they are from outer space. When a group of aliens land on earth, they just happen to resemble clowns and their earthly pleasures a little too much. This includes "ships" that resemble circus tents, and guns that trap unwitting victims in cotton candy-like cocoons. The Klowns are instantly terrifying and hilarious. I don't know how director Stephen Chiodo and his brother, writer Charles Chiodo, who both have a background in special effects work and puppetry, and who created the Klowns for this movie, managed it, but I want to both laugh at their antics, and scream at their hideous clown-like visages. It's a brilliant vibe the brothers have going on for this cheesy 1980s throwback flick. - Alyse Wax

Dead Alive

Before he transported audiences to Middle Earth, Peter Jackson made some of the weirdest, most wondrous genre films out there, and none more grotesque or hilarious than his 1992 slapstick splatter film, Dead Alive (aka Braindead). Timothy Balme stars as Lionel, a young man kept under the heavy thumb of his oppressive mother (Elizabeth Moody) until he falls in love. But just when he thinks he's free, mother's vengeance comes calling the form of a blood-soaked zombie outbreak that puts Lionel's sudden hunger for independence to the ultimate test. With flourishes of stop-motion, an ungodly amount of on-screen blood, and one of the all-time best cringe-worthy gags in the iconic soup scene, Dead Alive is one of the zaniest and most unhinged horror comedies of its time, culminating the lawnmower vs. zombie horde set-piece that ensured it would become a cult classic. -- Haleigh Foutch

They Live

When your film is such an unapologetically scathing satire and critique of capitalist society, you’ve got to have some laughs. In John Carpenter's They Live, Roddy Piper plays Nada, a drifter who discovers a pair of sunglasses that lets him see the world as it really is: run by monsters with subliminal messages telling people to worship money and obey their leaders. Thankfully, you’ve also got great lines like, “I’ve come to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I am all out of bubblegum,” and all-time fistfight between Piper and Keith David. - Matt Goldberg

An American Werewolf in London

When you hear the name John Landis, you might think of his notable 70s and 80s comedies, like Animal House, The Blues Brothers, and maybe even Trading Places and Coming to America. But for horror aficionados, another film will come to mind: The Oscar-winning horror-movie icon, An American Werewolf in London. This genre-bending classic spawned a sequel of sorts—An American Werewolf in Paris—which pales compared to the moonlit madness of the original.

The story follows two young American men, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), backpacking their way through England when they’re attacked by a werewolf, killing Jack, and wounding and cursing David. That’s your basic werewolf curse mythology, but Landis takes it a step further: Each of the creature’s victims will exist in a state of reanimation (be sure to take a look at our best zombie movies, by the way) until the bloodline is extinguished. The undead Jack acts as a sort of conscience and sounding board for David, which is something rarely seen in horror films. But what makes this particular movie such a gruesome (and awesome) werewolf flick is the Oscar-winning effects work of the legendary Rick Baker and his team. They still hold up today and are as bone-crunching and cringe-inducing as ever. – Dave Trumbore

Eating Raoul

Eating Raoul is one of the most gleefully immoral horror-comedies of all time. Though it's not particularly gruesome as far as cannibal films go, the film centers on a drab, condescending married couple, appropriately named The Blands (Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov), who have absolutely had it with the influx of swingers and degenerates in their apartment complex. When one said swinger gets aggressive with the wife, it sets off a chain of events that leads to a delightfully absurd and completely unhinged series of murders that culminate in a finely prepared people-meal. Eating Raoul is backed by moments of underplayed humor (See: Bartel snuggling a wine bottle pillow at night), an exploration of seedy sexual deviancy, and a quiet, wry wit that makes the film an absolute must-see. -- Haleigh Foutch

This Is the End

From the minds of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg comes This Is the End; a laugh-a-minute movie about the end of the world. Starring Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson, the story follows each of the actors playing fictional versions of their famous selves as they try to survive the end of the world, which kills all of their friends ― including Michael Cera, Rihanna, Aziz Ansari, and Kevin Hart — and later involves terrifying creatures rising up from the depth of hell to take them out. Oh, did I mention this is a funny movie? Because it is, with the hijinks unfolding as the guys are forced to wait out the first days of horror in Franco’s house. Things don’t go well as all of their big personalities and egos get in the way of a good time. They can’t ration, nor do they know how to forage for supplies, but somehow, things work out in the end. Now, how things work out, in the end, is another matter entirely and one you need to see for yourself.

This Is The End is the quintessential horror-comedy for today’s viewers. This Is The End has a perfect blend of post-apocalyptic terror and gut-busting jokes that run the gamut of amusing to absurd to outrageous. Plus, the deep, deep bench of prominent comedic actors (and a surprise appearance from one very famous ‘90s boy band) serve this film well and make for one truly enjoyable viewing experience. -- Allie Gemmill

Gremlins

This wickedly funny little creature feature should be mandatory viewing around every Christmastime. Or any time, really. There's never really a bad time for Gremlins, director Joe Dante's blast-and-a-half tale of Mogwai run amok. Well-meaning father Randall Petzer (Hoyt Axton) procures one of the fuzzy-faced little guys—Gizmo, an icon—for his son, repeating the three essential rules: Don't get them wet, don't expose them to bright light, and whatever you do, don't feed them after midnight. Of course, rules are broken and shenanigans ensue. Gremlins gets straight wacky, and thanks to some still-mesmerizing puppetry work the miniature monsters that cause mayhem in Kingston Falls are bursting with personality. But man, this movie is not afraid to get capital-d Dark. You'll be thinking about that "chimney story" for a long, long time. -- Vinnie Mancuso

The Final Girls

A heartwarming mother-daughter bonding drama by way of laugh-out-loud funny meta-slasher comedy, Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls is an absolute gem of the horror-comedy genre. Taissa Farmiga stars as Max Cartwright, a young woman grieving the loss of her mother (Malin Ackerman) — who also happened to be an 80s slasher scream queen — when she and her friends get sucked into one of her mom’s most beloved horror films.

The ensemble is a killer in its own right, including Alia Shawkat, Thomas Middleditch, Nina Dobrev, Adam Devine and Angela Trimbur in a scene-stealing role as a girl who just can’t stop sending out a siren’s call to the killer with her sexy dance moves. Meanwhile, Max can’t help but reconnect with the mother she lost while they head towards the inevitable showdown with the machete-wielding killer, the ensemble weaving in, out and around familiar genre tropes in their fight for survival. Innovative, hilarious, and touching, The Final Girl’s finds a new avenue into the self-aware horror genre, literally taking us through the screen into the world of the peak 80s teen slashers we love so much and setting an updated story there that stands on its own. The kills are brutal, the laughs are abundant, and the heartwarming bits land with tear-jerking resonance, making The Final Girls a horror-comedy must-watch and, for my money, one of the most underrated home runs you may have missed. — Haleigh Foutch

What We Do in the Shadows

What’s that? You’ve never seen the greatest film to ever be made in New Zealand, the mockumentary known as What We Do In The Shadows? For shame! This is a cracking entry into the mockumentary category from co-writers/directors/leads Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. The film follows three vampires — Viago (Taika Waititi), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), and Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) — who live together, bicker over who does the chores, and go on the prowl for new victims together. The story stays focused on the mundane parts of life as a vampire. Rather than focus on the sensational aspects of vampirism (although there are sensational moments aplenty, including the inventive ways the film shows the vampires flying and turning into bats), we watch our protagonists re-assess what it means to live forever, try and find long-lost love, and get updated on all the latest tech trends. There are some truly gross, disturbing moments that remind you this is a horror film but underneath all the blood and viscera is the beating heart of a film completely ready to subvert what’s expected of a vampire. -- Allie Gemmill

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

A positively uproarious spin on the backwoods killer genre, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil turns the tables of the Texas Chainsaw-type thrills, turning the would-be killers into the good guys. Tucker and Dale just want to fix up their cabin. The longtime bros (played to perfection by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) are looking for a quiet retreat when a group of stuck-up teens wander into their property and immediately assume the worst about these backwoods hicks. Despite doing everything they can to be friendly and helpful, Tucker and Dale can't stop innocently scaring these kids to literal death, and the result is a bloody, boisterous and sometimes quite touching horror-comedy about friendship and learning to look past stereotypes. Eli Craig directs with perfect pacing and some spectacularly cut scenes that will have you gasping for breath between the laughs before gasping at the brutality of the bloodshed. -- Haleigh Foutch

Night of the Creeps

"Thrill me." I'm not sure there are two better words, spoken here by uber-grizzled detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins), to sum up the whole vibe of Night of the Creeps. A year before he hit big with Monster Squad, writer/director Fred Dekker unleased this truly insane genre mash-up on a world that was not ready for it yet. Extraterrestrial experiments, slugs that take over your brain, corpses rising from the slab. An earnest homage to drive-in B-movies—the cheesier, the better—Night of the Creeps mangles and mashes all the best parts of your typical zombie apocalypse, alien invasion, and 1950s creature feature all into one gloriously bloody package. (There's also an ax-wielding maniac thrown in for good measure.) Pretty much the definition of a cult classic, Night of the Creeps is the most fun you can have laughing your head right off. -- Vinnie Mancuso

Jennifer's Body

Jennifer’s Body, starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, is a deeply good horror comedy with a lot on its mind it would like to unpack with you, the viewer. Aided by Diablo Cody’s script and under Karyn Kusama’s direction, Jennifer’s Body takes your typical demonic possession story, modernizes it, and contorts it in such a way that you'll never stop being surprised where the story is leading you. The fun of watching Jennifer’s Body is the ridiculous, sexy, hilarious, and horrifying journey it takes you on. Better still, it’s a genuinely smart and insightful depiction of the helpful and harmful nuances of female friendship.

The film follows childhood besties Needy (Seyfried) and Jennifer (Fox). Needy has always been bookish and Jennifer has always been popular. Together, it doesn’t seem like their friendship should work but Needy and Jennifer have forged an unbreakable bond over the years. That bond is tested when Needy and Jennifer go out to a local bar one night to see one of Jennifer’s favorite bands, with a lead singer (Adam Brody) she’s jonesin’ to hook up with. Jennifer ends up with the band as Needy goes home and instead of a tryst, Jennifer ends up getting sacrificed to a local demon so the band can achieve fame and fortune. A newly-possessed Jennifer returns home and Needy begins to suspect there is something seriously wrong with her best friend, especially when the boys in their small town start turning up dead. --Allie Gemmill

Scream

This story of a ghost-faced serial killer stalking a California high school is a master of horror working his magic on two different levels. Wes Craven helped put slashers on the map with A Nightmare on Elm Street, so of course, he could pinpoint the tricks and tropes of the genre perfectly to whip up Scream, a self-aware satire that's razor-sharp and genuinely funny. (If you don't think Scream is in on its own joke the entire way, please pay attention to Matthew Lillard's delivery of the line "my mom is gonna' be so mad at me.") But on a completely non-meta level, Scream is still scary as hell, even as it's telling you why it's scary as hell. That opening scene with Drew Barrymore—"What's your favorite scary movie?"—is an all-timer, and then it only piles on more and more high-tension hilarity from there. -- Vinnie Mancuso

Cooties

In Cooties, kids are literally little monsters when a virus spreads through an elementary school and turns the students into flesh-eating zombies. Much to the horror of the teachers, who initially watch the terror unfold from the teacher’s lounge while their kids are at recess, there’s no stopping these zombified rugrats. Instead, the teachers — a ragtag bunch of adults who don’t exactly hate teaching but would probably love doing something else with their lives — get a game plan together in order to try and escape the school without losing anyone to the 4-foot-2 undead swarm who all got infected thanks to a bad batch of factory-made chicken nuggets.

Now, this may sound like a dread-filled affair, but the cast and crew of Cooties make this film nothing but a morbidly wonderful romp. Directed by Bushwick duo Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion, written by Leigh Whannell (Saw) and Ian Brennan (Scream Queens), and starring Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill, Nasim Pedrad, and Jack McBrayer, Cooties is full of all the manic energy only found in an elementary school. The Cooties cast each get their moment to shine, playing a varied array of character types that bounce well off each other, even in a crisis. Wilson regularly threatens to steal the spotlight as an uber-masculine, dim-witted P.E. teacher, so if you need a reason to watch, there you go. -- Allie Gemmill

Young Frankenstein

Where do you even start talking about Mel Brooks’ 1974 horror-comedy classic Young Frankenstein? Is it with this incredible cast of actors who are at the top of their game including Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman, and the scene-stealing Gene Hackman? Or is it with the hilarious, Oscar-nominated script from Brooks and Wilder that lampoons James Whale’s 1931 horror classic Frankenstein perfectly? Or maybe it’s with Brooks’ direction that evokes the feeling of those classic monster movies so well that you might catch yourself feeling like this is a movie that actually belongs side by side with those black and white classics like Dracula and The Wolfman? Whatever your reasons, this is far and away Brooks’ greatest and funniest film. It’s never once felt dated in any of my rewatches of it (like Blazing Saddles does…admit it) and deftly walks that knife’s edge of respecting and parodying the source material. -- John Rocha

The Love Witch

Director Anna Biller’s The Love Witch is unlike any other horror-comedy released in recent memory. The film leans heavily into its dreamy, late ‘60s aesthetic which has the power to recall the softer side of Dario Argento in the right moments. There a richness to the world Biller has built in all its technicolor glory that immediately casts a spell on you; from there, you’re a goner. The Love Witch manages to be both light and dark in the most entrancing way possible, delivering some truly delightful, wry one-liners courtesy of the film’s note-perfect star, Samantha Robinson.

The Love Witch tells the story of a perpetually single young witch, Elaine, who moves to a new town in search of love. She’s gorgeous, confident, and literally bewitching to behold; what could go wrong? But soon enough, we learn that Elaine’s spells and potions, which she uses to make men fall in love with her, might be doing more harm than good. What’s a poor, love-starved witch to do? Elaine’s solution to getting the right man to fall in love with her is wildly unconventional, yes, but if it’s done in the name of love then it must be alright. -- Allie Gemmill

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Cabin in the Woods

Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon put the whole horror genre on notice with their brilliant deconstructions of the genre. At the time of its release, the film’s twists were closely guarded, and it’s easy to see why. Far from a typical “Cabin in the Woods” horror story, the film skillfully mocks the arbitrary nature of horror foes and how such terrors are picked seemingly at random rather than having any thought behind them. By pointing out the flaws of the genre, Cabin in the Woods stands as one of its best examples in the 21st century. - Matt Goldberg

Bubba Ho-Tep

I can’t imagine that many studios in the early 2000s were looking to finance a movie called Bubba Ho-Tep that featured an elderly Elvis Presley and a possibly still alive John F. Kennedy teaming up to take down a soul-stealing Egyptian mummy! I’m not sure many audiences were initially lining up to see this one either. But when you cast horror-comedy veteran Bruce Campbell to play the aging King of Rock and Roll and veteran actor Ossie Davis to play the disembodied JFK, teaming up to take down a soul-sucking mummy, you know that you might have struck horror-comedy gold.

Elvis and Jack try to explain the reasons for why their friends are dying to the staff and other patients, but to no avail. After one aged friend too many gets their soul removed by this Bubba Ho-Tep (named so by Elvis), E and JFK formulate a plan to take down this ancient terror and release the souls of their friends. I won’t ruin the ending for you, in case you haven’t seen it, but suffice it to say that it features some of the funniest, scariest and surprisingly emotional moments you’ll ever see in a horror-comedy. You just might find yourself All Shook Up after it’s all said and done. Ok. I’ll see myself out. Thank you. Thank you very much. -- John Rocha