Conor McMahon, the writer and director of new Irish horror comedy, Let The Wrong One In, picks five of his favourite films that aren't afraid to be scary and funny at the same time...
Featuring Buffy The Vampire Slayer star Anthony Head, Let The Wrong One In tells the story of a young supermarket worker who discovers that his older brother is a vampire, and must choose whether to save or slay him...
Enjoy Conor's Top 5 horror comedies below...
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Sam Raimi's remake of his own low-budget original is a joy from start to finish. When I first saw this film at the age of 15, I was left stunned. The sheer energy and invention of it was like nothing I had seen before. It married slap-stick comedy, crazy camera work, over the top gore, along with a hilarious central performance by Bruce Campbell. I will never tire of Bruce chainsawing off his own hand as he manically shouts "Who's laughing now?" As a friend recently said to me, "D.W. Griffith might have invented the grammar of cinema but Sam Raimi invented his own vocabulary."
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
This John Landis film has one of my favourite opening sequences of all time. Whenever I’m on a hike or walk I’m always compelled to say - "Stick to the road, stay off the moors." It's only when I continue with, "Beware the moon!" that people start looking confused. What’s interesting about the approach here is that the horror sequences are genuinely scary and are usually separated out from the comedy moments so it doesn’t undermine the scares. The subway scene is one such example that is firmly burnt into my retinas. We also can’t forget the groundbreaking transformation sequence, one that has yet to be surpassed.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Following the success of The Producers, Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks team up once again in this homage to 1930’s horror cinema. Tarantino recently named it a perfect film and it's hard to imagine how it could be improved. I remember the first time watching it and being in pain laughing at every line by Marty Feldman who plays Igor (pronounced I-gor of course). It's also a beautiful film to look at and perfectly captures the style of James Whale's Frankenstein movies, even down to the wobbly dolly shots.
Gremlins (1984)
Much as I love this film, I did always dread that Santa speech when my younger siblings were watching. A well timed cough was needed just as Kate says, "And that's how I found out there’s no…" Cough cough cough." This is also a film I've watched so many times I've even developed my own theory about it. I noticed that the colours red, white and blue are in almost every shot which seemed to represent the American flag. Then when the Gremlins first appear a lot of green light is introduced and the first thing the gremlins do is go to an Irish pub and get drunk. Could the gremlins represent the Irish in America?
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
One of the films that reanimated the zombie genre in the early 2000’s, this time told with a very distinctive visual style by Edger Wright. But it's the chemistry between the two leads, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, that makes this more than a stylistic exercise. One of my favourite scenes involves deciding which records they should throw at some approaching zombies, (though I would have held on to the Batman soundtrack myself).
Let The Wrong One In is at Irish cinemas from January 27th 2023
