Comedy horror in the context of Cliché

Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs.

Horror films have existed since the early 20th century. Early inspirations predating film include folklore; the religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures; and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From its origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror became a codified genre only after the release of Dracula (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, erotic horror, slasher films, splatter films, supernatural horror, and psychological horror. The genre has been produced worldwide, varying in content and style between regions. Horror is particularly prominent in the cinema of Japan, Korea, and Thailand, among other countries.

Leprechaun is a 1993 American horror comedy film written and directed by Mark Jones, and starring Warwick Davis in the title role, with Jennifer Aniston supporting. The film follows a vengeful leprechaun who believes a family has stolen his pot of gold. As he hunts them, they attempt to locate his gold to mollify him.

Originally intended as straight horror, Davis injected humor into his role, and reshoots added increased gore to appeal to older audiences. Leprechaun was the first in-house production at Trimark Pictures for theatrical exhibition; it earned a domestic gross of $8.556 million against a budget of roughly $900,000 and became a cult film. While reviews were negative, with critics lambasting both the direction and the characters and saying that the film is neither scary nor funny, the commercial success prompted a series of films with a sequel, Leprechaun 2, released theatrically the following year.

Shining Vale is an American satirical comedy horror television series created by Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan. The series stars Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, Sherilyn Fenn, Mira Sorvino, Merrin Dungey, and Judith Light. It premiered on Starz on March 6, 2022. In May 2022, the series was renewed for a second season. The second season premiered on October 13, 2023. In December 2023, the series was canceled after two seasons, with its seasons to be removed from the streaming service. On January 1, 2025, the series became available for streaming on Max.

A Bucket of Blood is a 1959 American comedy horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. It stars Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Ed Nelson and Bert Convy, and is set in the West Coast beatnik culture of the late 1950s. The film, produced on a $50,000 budget, was shot in five days and shares many of the low-budget filmmaking aesthetics commonly associated with Corman's work. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a dark comic satire about a dimwitted, impressionable young busboy at a Bohemian café who is acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor when he accidentally kills his landlady's cat and covers its body in clay to hide the evidence. When he is pressured to create similar work, he becomes a serial murderer.

A Bucket of Blood was the first of a trio of collaborations between Corman and Griffith in the comedy genre, which include The Little Shop of Horrors (which was shot on the same sets as A Bucket of Blood) and Creature from the Haunted Sea. Corman had made no previous attempt at the genre, although past and future Corman productions in other genres incorporated comedic elements. The film is a satire not only of Corman's own films but also of the world of abstract art as well as low-budgeted teen films of the 1950s. The film has also been praised in many circles as an honest, undiscriminating portrayal of the many facets of beatnik culture, including poetry, dance, and a minimalist style of life. The plot has similarities to Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). However, by setting the story in the Beat milieu of 1950s Southern California, Corman creates an entirely different mood from the earlier film.

The Little Shop of Horrors is a 1960 American horror comedy film directed by Roger Corman. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a farce about a florist's assistant who cultivates a plant that feeds on human blood. The film stars Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, and Dick Miller, who had all worked for Corman on previous films. Produced under the title The Passionate People Eater, the film employs an original style of humor, combining dark comedy with farce and incorporating Jewish humor and elements of spoof. The Little Shop of Horrors was shot on a budget of $28,000 (equivalent to $298,000 in 2024). Interiors were shot in two days, by utilizing sets that had been left standing from A Bucket of Blood. It is possible that the movie’s premise was inspired by H.A. Rey’s 1942 children’s book Elizabite.

The film was released in October 1960 by Filmgroup as a double feature with Filmgroup's Last Woman on Earth (1960).The film slowly gained a cult following through word of mouth when it was later distributed as the B movie in a double feature with Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960)

The Raven is a 1963 American comedy Gothic horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. The film stars Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Boris Karloff as a trio of rival sorcerers. The supporting cast includes Jack Nicholson as the son of Lorre's character.

It was the fifth in the so-called Corman-Poe cycle of eight films largely featuring adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories produced by Roger Corman and released by American International Pictures (AIP). The film was written by Richard Matheson, based on references to Poe's 1845 poem "The Raven". AIP released the film as a double feature with Night Tide.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes is a 1971 British comedy horror film directed by Robert Fuest, and written by James N. Whiton and William Goldstein. It stars Vincent Price in the title role, Dr. Anton Phibes, who blames his wife's death on the medical team that attended to her surgery four years earlier, and sets out to exact vengeance on each one. He is inspired in his murder spree by the Ten Plagues of Egypt from the Old Testament, although the Ten Plagues in the film's Old Testament considerably differ from those in the real world Old Testament. The film co-stars Joseph Cotten, Hugh Griffith, Terry-Thomas, Virginia North, with an uncredited Caroline Munro appearing as Phibes's wife.

The film was produced by the UK branch of American International Pictures, and was released by MGM-EMI Distributors in April 1971. While it initially received mostly positive reviews from critics, it has since gone on to garner a significant cult following, with critics singling out Price's performance, the film's dark humour, and its Art Deco production design. A 2015 Time Out London poll ranked the film in the Top 100 Horror Films of All Time.