5 Horror Sub-Genres In Need Of Spoofs

The spoof movie has been around since about the beginning of history when Edwin S. Porter parodied his own 1903 hit film THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY with the 1905 short THE LITTLE TRAIN ROBBERY. Preceding both HAWK JONES and BUGSY MALONE by decades, Porter found it uproarious to mock his landmark western movie by casting children in all of the roles. Not everything can be Oscar Wilde.

Of course parodies would become more regular with popular titles getting sent up in cartoons, vaudeville, the Borscht Belt, comic books, and more over the years. 1977’s THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE announced a new breed of humorists (and one eventual, literal, un-convicted murderer) with John Landis, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker putting together a loose confederation of oddball sketches and then a prolonged spoof of ENTER THE DRAGON titled “A Fistful Of Yen” (Yen being Japanese currency, not Chinese despite it taking place in China/Hong Kong with kung fu…but who could’ve foreseen that Landis would not have great relations with Asian people?!?).

From there came works from ZAZ team like AIRPLANE!, THE NAKED GUN, TOP SECRET!, BASEKETBALL, and more before eventually they devolved into arch-conservatives (AN AMERICAN CAROL is…not great!) and then became fairly indistinguishable from their own pale imitators with their work on SCARY MOVIE 3, 4, and V.

By that point spoof movies, despite yielding lots of fun titles—like I’M GONNA GET YOU SUCKA and DON’T BE A MENACE TO SOUTH CENTRAL WHILE DRINKING YOUR JUICE IN THE HOOD from the Wayans Family, and a the vast majority of Mel Brooks’ filmography including BLAZING SADDLES, SPACEBALLS, and ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS—was soon approach a bit of a death knell.

The murderers appeared to be filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose oeuvre included EPIC MOVIE, DISASTER MOVIE, MEET THE SPARTANS, DATE MOVIE, and whose idea of parody had devolved into simply repeating catch phrases and recreating costumes from popular titles and that basically being the joke…occasionally followed by maybe a fart or kick in the balls if one is lucky. It was “remember this?” but without any further depth or point or even a joke. Those movies are trash.

But death ain’t what it used to be, and it certainly was never too permanent in genre trends. THEY CAME TOGETHER, NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE, and more have come around in the past 20 years to show that blood still flowed in the veins and that reports of the demise of the parody may have been premature. At both its height of popularity and even in the waxing days of spoofs (with…VAMPIRES SUCK and the aforementioned SCARY MOVIE sequels), horror movies have always been ripe for such farce, leading to some genuine classics like YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES. The titles that have found the greatest success, though, have been those that zero in on a particular sub-genre (still occasionally going out to other types of films and stories), but nailing the particular tropes of things like slashers, zombie films, and so on. Here are five horror sub-genres that are ripe for a spoof and could produce some excellent parodic movies.

1. Elevated Horror

This particular sub-genre may be a bit too inside baseball to have broad appeal, but it would most likely be a cult hit amongst film festivals and genre events. “Elevated Horror” was a gross misnomer applied to a crop of horror films (made mostly from 2005 to 2020) that tended to utilize a lot of arthouse techniques like minimalist dialogue, artificially constructed but beautiful framing, abstract imagery/dream sequences, and lack of concrete resoltion, all while dealing with deeper psychological and/or social issues like race, gender, trauma, and such. Basically if a horror film was put out by A24, Annapurna, or Neon in that period, chances are it would be considered elevated horror.

Obviously folks bristled at this because all of those techniques and topics have been in horror films since the beginning of horror films with NOSFERATU and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. It was an unnecessary line of demarcation that carried unsubtle snobbish message that “regular” horror was not artful and for the more common, and therefore stupider, person.

But this fake cul-de-sac of movies does have some signature elements and recurring tropes that are ripe for parody. Whether it’s imagery of long sustained shots, or moments of complete emotional exhaustion, or some character really hitting the “message” loudly, it’s all a bit obvious now and more than a bit silly. Especially when the trailers that always promise something terrifying and non-stop thrilling tends to clash with the actual tempo and tone of the movies being advertised (alack poor IT COMES AT NIGHT; you never stood a chance). You can see what this could encompass in the following parody trailer for BONHOMME from Lauren and Caitlin:

2. Anthology horror

This would be a more difficult sub-genre to spoof because it contains within it multitudes of other sub-genres and tropes. Tales of mummies, vampires, werewolves, abutted against ghosts realizing they’re dead, or some sort of social commentary piece, can be found in all manner of horror anthology films from DEAD OF NIGHT, DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS, CREEPSHOW, and NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR, to TRICK ‘R’ TREAT, XX, SCARE PACKAGE, THE MORTUARY COLLECTION, and even VEROTIKA plus everything in between and far beyond. There have been horror anthologies for almost 80 years now. Crazy.

Despite its many diversities, there are enough hallmarks of this particular brand of horror film with its storied history that are ripe for parody and would be easily identifiable as traits of the anthology movie. The often ironic comeuppance that lies at the heart of the stories. There’s the odd insertion of star power in small bites with big name actors essentially showing up for a couple of minutes.

There’s almost always a dud that goes on too long or simply doesn’t work quite the same way as the other segments.

And of course the wraparound segments where someone in film is treated to the stories just as we, the audience, sit through them.

The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horrors” episodes have spoofed horror anthologies in the past, either directly with their Night Gallery framing device or the connective tissue of a constantly dying Groundskeeper Willy. And there’s the middling Dr. Terrible’s House Of Horrible which is another television series that satirizes these chilling tales. It has its moments, but that show is more specifically aligned with Amicus anthologies from the ‘70s and other British fare from around that time.

Those are all across multiple episodes and not done on the grand scale of a film, which could include incredible effects and an impressive mix of genre talent and far-too-good-to-be-in-it performers. These movies are collection of stories which allow for slightly different humor and targets each time, but also are inherently metatextual slices of cinema about storytelling; the fourth wall is already broken and the winking about “bad horror clichés!” is prevalent in all of them. So why not just push the pedal all the way down and deliver a true horror anthology spoof. It could even be a thing where different horror hosts (each representing a type like the pun-loving Cryptkeeper, or the creepy and mysterious tape collectors of V/H/S, or an erudite older actor) are competing to stay around with each other.

3. Evil Dolls

Before we get into it, yeah, I know THE BOY isn’t an evil doll movie. But I just didn’t want to use a CHILD’S PLAY photo. I could’ve gone with ANNABELLE, but I will always find that porcelain-and-wood version tiny version of Jared Kushner simultaneously creepy AND hilarious.

CHILD’S PLAY leaned into its inherently absurd premise around the time of BRIDE OF CHUCKY, and there’s been plenty of comedic works featuring evil dolls (BLACK DEVIL FROM HELL, SEED OF CHUCKY, “Clown Without Pity” segment from The Simpsons, Nadja’s Ghost/Doll in What We Do In The Shadows, and more).

But an entire spoof in which grown adults are unable to fight back against these teeny terrors would have years of source material:

TRILOGY OF TERROR, TALES FROM THE HOOD, CHILD’S PLAY franchise(s), ANNABELLE, the PUPPET MASTER franchise(s), DOLLY DEAREST, DEAD SILENCE, DOLLS, MAGIC, AMITYVILLE DOLLHOUSE, SMALL SOLDIERS, DEVIL DOLL, and on and on.

While the automatonophobia the fuels suspicion and dread of these creepy humanoids in our midst is a widespread fear and ripe for exploitation, the films themselves tend to be based in patently bizarro plots.

With all manner of unintentionally wacky convolutions to provide pint-sized scaremongers with something approaching a plausible threat, it opens up a major opportunity for writers to skewer this oddly prolific sub-genre.

Whether it’s electronic toys gone wild, or possessed dolls, or more, there’s ample room to bring all of these tropes and traits together for a ridiculously entertaining spoof film.

4. Body Horror

This one is a bit more difficult to navigate as body horror—best exemplified in the works of David Cronenberg, Julia Ducournau, Frank Henenlotter, Brian Yuzna, Brandon Cronenberg, Stuart Gordon, and others—also tends to deal in social issues.

Whether its physical autonomy, agency, identity, sexuality, gender, and/or race, body horror filmmakers tie the biological permutations and terrors to larger topics. This poses a possible minefield (unintentionally trivializing or mocking these serious matters) but also an opportunity to skewer the heavy handed or tone deaf approaches that have occasionally resulted.

BODY MELT, FREAKED, or BASKET CASE 3 is probably the closest to body horror spoofs we have, but they aren’t spoofs; at least, not in the vein of ZAZ or other mocking (with love) works, but just heightened and ridiculous horror movies with lots of gags and jokes alongside their depictions of organic betrayals.

Henenlotter’s BAD BIOLOGY also dips its toes into self-awareness and joking about the sub-genre, but to have a full-on spoof with medical oddities and physiological weirdness would be a great bit of intensity to weaponize for humor.

5. Man vs Nature (Animals Attack)

DAY OF THE ANIMALS, JAWS, GRIZZLY, THE BIRDS, SLUGS, ALLIGATOR, SQUIRM, TENTACLES, and waves upon waves of awful CGI shark and snake films that SyFy and The Asylum have unleashed upon an unsuspecting public.

There have been attempts to use ridiculous animals to make the joke obvious, or to substitute in another antagonist that follows the same plot structure and tropes as these films (BLADES comes to mind). I’m certain there is some title from the ‘80s that is an intentional spoof that I can’t think of (and is only about animals attacking, not just a quick sidenote or tossed away scene), but it seems like this would be a fantastic sub-genre for spoofing. SHARKNADO (and its sequels) posed as a spoof, but it wanted to be a bad movie as well and also a fun stupid time.

But these films are brimming with tropes that are perfect for skewing and launching pads for silly tangents. They always have characters with far too serious backstories, more narrative contortions to get people in the crosshairs of the rampaging creature(s), some sort of personal vendetta between the animal antagonist and the hero, trappings of family drama, and some major event that leads to a crescendo of gore and violence (THE LAST SHARK’s windsurfing regatta is the best of these).

These would be terrific to plug in some genuinely accomplished and beloved serious actors, truly horrific gore f/x, plus a bunch of other bizarre branching subjects.

It would be great if David Wain (WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, THEY CAME TOGETHER) teamws up with Astron-6 (PG: PSYCHO GOREMAN) to produce a great animal attack spoof.

Or maybe Joe Lynch (WRONG TURN 2, MAYHEM, episodes of Creepshow) would be the perfect Venn diagram overlap of talent to deliver this animal kingdom vs world of man spoof.

Joe - I have a pitch. DM me. Kisses!