Subgenre Sampler

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Life Without Dick (2001): Dir. Bix Skahill
Feat. Sarah Jessica Parker, Harry Connick Jnr.; Mildly black comedy has a doe–eyed Sarah Jessica Parker accidently offing her boyfriend and resorting to hitman Harry Connick Jnr (who has…
Bride of Chucky (1999): Dir. Ronnie Yu
Feat. Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Nick Stabile; Hard to believe this was a good idea, but the writer of the original CHILD'S PLAY manages to rejuvenate the tired series with a sardonic edge and an…
Cabaret Balkan (The Powder Keg) (1999): Dir. Goran Paskaljevic
Feat. Nikola Ristanovski; Troubling split–portrait of the Serbian psyche, depicting a series of often violent incidents over the course of a single night in Belgrade,…
Carriers Are Waiting, The (Les Convoyeurs Attendent) (1999): Dir. Benoit Maraige
Feat. Benoit Poelvoorde, Morgane Simon, Bouli Laners; When journalist Benoit Poelvoorde decides his family MUST win top prize in local competition (which involves training his reluctant son to break the…
Celebrity Deathmatch (TV Series) (1999): Genuinely amusing clay–mation generated by MTV, stages fantasy bouts–to–the–death between various celebrity pairings, like:…
It's the Rage (1999): Dir. James D. Stern
Feat. Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, Gary Sinise…; This caustic, precocious black comedy/satire of America's obsession with guns is a roundelay of violent and volatile confrontations that eventually…
Picking Up the Pieces (1999): Dir. Alfonso Arau
Feat. Sharon Stone, Woody Allen, Cheech Marin…; When the pieces of a dismembered Sharon Stone are dumped on the Mexican border one of her hands goes astray and is soon being worshiped by the locals…
Suicide Kings (1999): Dir. Peter O'Fallon
Feat. Christopher Walken, Denis Leary; Post–PULP FICTION black–comedy, that does better than most in juggling a crime setting, a mystery and various comical dialogues, with a…
Dead Man's Curve (1998): Dir. Dan Rosen
Feat. Matthew Lillard, Keri Russell, Dana Delaney; Taking malicious advantage of a school–policy loophole, two desperate students conspire to dress up the murder of their room–mate as a…
Home Fries (1998): Dir. Dean Parisot
Feat. Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson; Drew Barrymore continues to style herself as a wise yet perky cutsie–pie, here as a pregnant Burger–Matic waitress dodging the vindictive…
Jawbreaker (1998): Dir. Darren Stein
Feat. Rose McGowan; A trio of teen–queens (incl. Rose McGowan), used to inflicting tongue–lashings on their classmates go onto the back foot when they…
Last Yellow, The (1998): Dir. Julian Farino
Feat. Mark Addy, Charlie Creed-Miles, Samantha Morton; Dishevelled rogue Mark Addy (THE FULL MONTY) and none–too–bright sidekick Charlie Creed–Miles learn lessons of loyalty and…
Thursday (1998): Dir. Skip Woods
Feat. Thomas Jane, Aaron Eckhart, Paulina Porizkova…; Architect Thomas Jane has his suburban life up–ended when his drug–dealing past catches up with him in the form of Aaron Eckhart and his…
Addicted to Love (1997): Dir. Griffin Dunne
Feat. Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick; Acting serial monogamist Meg Ryan couples this time with Matthew Broderick for romantic revenge on their respective ex–partners who've become…
Curdled (1997): Dir. Reb Braddock
Feat. Angela Jones, William Baldwin; Confident black comedy with an uncurdled premise – an innocent yet morbidly–fascinated senorita joins a Miami cleaning agency…
Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997): Dir. Tom Schulman
Feat. Joe Pesci, Andy Comeau, Kristy Swanson; Mob bagman Joe Pesci must transport hard evidence of a mass slaying, but he loses the noggins and has to recoup them by any means necessary from a…
Head Above Water (1997): Dir. Jim Wilson
Feat. Cameron Diaz, Harvey Keitel, Craig Sheffer…; An island respite turns afoul for Cameron Diaz, who adds to her multiple man troubles with a gush of fateful coincidences. Frantic suspense farce has…
Jack Frost (1997): Dir. Michael Cooney
Feat. Scott MacDonald, Christopher Allport, Stephen Mendel; A modern Ed Wood–style horror comedy about a killer snowman terrorising a small rural community. While uneven, this is mostly better than it…
Orphans (1997): Dir. Peter Mullan
Feat. Douglas Henshall, Gary Lewis, Rosmarie Stevenson; The writer/directing debut of Peter Mullen, star of MY NAME IS JOE,is an expectedly raw and bleakly humorous journey through the darker side of…
Weapons of Mass Distraction (1997): Dir. Stephen Surjik
Feat. Gabriel Byrne, Ben Kingsley, Mimi Rogers…; Media moguls Gabriel Byrne and Ben Kingsley vie for ownership of a pro football team, in an escalating war of one–upmanship, eventually raking…
Chicken (1996): Dir. Grant Lahood
Feat. Cliff Curtis, Bryan Marshall, Martyn Sanderson…; Blackly comic farce about an middle–aged ex–pop–star–turned–fast–food–proprietor who is being stalked by a…
Fled (1996): Dir. Kevin Hooks
Feat. Stephen Baldwin, Laurence Fishburne; Violent comedy handcuffs together movie–obsessed computer whizz Stephen Baldwin with no–nonsense criminal Laurence Fishburne. Breaking a…
Mr. Wrong (1996): Dir. Nick Castle
Feat. Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Pullman; Ellen DeGeneres, of TV's 'Ellen', playing the dating game of the 90s, meets a handsome stranger only to find his 'perfect' veneer is a creepy…
Grave, The (1995): Dir. Jonas Pate
Feat. Craig Sheffer, Josh Charles, Gabrielle Anwar…; Craig Sheffer and Josh Charles break jail to dredge though redneck country in pursuit of buried treasure. Though indebted to the likes of the Coen…
Grotesque, The (1995): Dir. John-Paul Davidson
Feat. Alan Bates, Sting; Bizarre, upper–crust English comedy has a suave, veritably oily Sting as butler to crank palaeontologist Alan Bates and his ghastly family.…
Kamikaze Taxi (1995): Dir. Masato Harada
Feat. Koji Yakusho, Kazuya Takahashi, Reiko Kataoka; An apprentice gangster fouls up his first major assignment and flees Tokyo in a taxi, the driver of which turns out to be a unlikely confident with a…
Mona Must Die (Ein fast perfektes Verhältnis) (1995): Dir. Donald Reiker
Feat. Marianne Sagebrecht; A tyrannical wife becomes a target for murder of her brow–beaten husband and his neighbour lover. Their devious plan involves the mistress…
Staggered (1995): Dir. Martin Clunes
Feat. Martin Clunes, Griff Rhys-Jones, Michael Praed; As a rather extreme stag party prank, Martin Clunes ('Men Behaving Badly') is left naked on a beach in the wop–wops. His protracted voyage back…
Young Poisoner's Handbook, The (1995): Dir. Benjamin Ross
Feat. Hugh O'Conor, Antony Sher, Ruth Sheen…; A disquieting black comedy about a chemistry student who proceeded to poision his parents and others in the 1960s. Typically British in its portrait…
Spanking the Monkey (1994): Dir. David O. Russell
Feat. Jeremy Davies, Elizabeth Newett, Benjamin Hendrickson…; The awkwardness of youth is brilliantly captured in this provocative tragi–comedy, another maverick success story from the US indie scene. A…
Voyage (1993): Dir. John Mackenzie
Feat. Rutger Hauer, Karen Allen, Eric Roberts; A great black comedy B–movie with Rutger Hauer and Karen Allen as long–marrieds who share their yacht with old 'friends'. They soon…
Frauds (1992): Dir. Stephan Elliot
Feat. Phil Collins, Hugo Weaving, Nicholas Hammond; Phil Collins plays a smooth–talking, sleazy insurance investigator hell bent on making life miserable for a young couple who have made a claim.…
Guilty As Charged (1992): Dir. Sam Irvin
Feat. Rod Steiger, Isaac Hayes; Resourceful and 'well–executed' black comedy stars Rod Steiger as a religious zealot who fries sinners in his home–made electric chair.…
Wild Target (1992): Dir. Pierre Salvadori
Feat. Jean Rochefort, Guillaume Depardieu; Jean Rochefort is a fastidious hitman whose mania for control, both at home and on assignment, is dangerously weakened when he apprentices Gerard…
Dark Backward, The (1991): Dir. Adam Rifkin
Feat. Judd Nelson, Bill Paxton, Wayne Newton…; Weird black comedy about a hopeless stand–up comic (Judd Nelson) who finds that the third arm growing from his back is his ticket to the…
Nirvana Street Murder (1991): Dir. Aleksi Vellis
Feat. Mark Little, Ben Mendelsohn; Raw, inventive street story that juggles cultural conflict with matters of the heart as two disparate brothers find themselves in a scrape with Greek…
Over Her Dead Body (Enid is Sleeping) (1991): Dir. Maurice Phillips
Feat. Judge Reinhold, Elizabeth Perkins, Jeffrey Jones…; Garish fun with Judge Reinhold and Elisabeth Perkins as a couple of illicit Southern love–birds who kill his wife, but have trouble disposing…
Daddy's Dyin', Who's Got the Will? (1990): Dir. Jack Fisk
Feat. Beau Bridges, Beverly D'Angelo, Tess Harper…; Various estranged family members re–unite when their patriarch decides to call it a life. A hillbilly comedy with lots of quality squabbling.
Deadly Mr. Frost (1990): Dir. Philip Setbon
Feat. Jeff Goldblum; Intriguing black comedy with Jeff Goldblum well cast as a smug serial killer who breaks a two year silence to confide in a psychiatrist that he is…
Frankenhooker (1990): Dir. Frank Henenlotter
Feat. James Lorinz, Joanne Ritchie, Patty Mullen; A young scientist accidentally chops up his gal with a lawnmower, then seeks new body parts from the red light district in order to preserve their…
Meet the Applegates (1990): Dir. Michael Lehmann
Feat. Ed Jr. Begley, Stockard Channing, Dabney Coleman; A wacky satire about a family of insects who assimilate into suburban America in order to blow up a nuclear power plant. As bent as it sounds, from…
Tales from the Crypt (1990): Dir. Robert Zemeckis, Walter Hill, Richard Donner
Feat. Miguel Ferrer, Roy Brocksmith; Three gruesome anecdotes featuring; an out–of–work executioner who turns vigilante, an adulterous housewife who gets a sharp Christmas…
Dead Funny (Penn and Teller Get Killed) (1989): Dir. Arthur Penn
Feat. David Patrick Kelly, Jon Cryer, Reg E. Cathey…; Black comedy and magic duo Penn and Teller deploy an array of morbid stage show theatrics within the framework of a fictional feature.
Just Me and Mario (1989): Dir. Greg Stitt
Feat. Mark Hadlow; Mark Hadlow portrays a repressed individual obsessed with the music and life of Mario Lanza. It's a surreal, blackly comic take on suburban angst.
Parents (1989): Dir. Bob Balaban
Feat. Randy Quaid, Mary Beth Hurt, Sandy Dennis; Frightening piece of horror kitsch about a boy who suspects his parents are cannibals. Splendid, stylised direction and set design make this a…
Fright Night Part 2 (1988): Dir. Tommy Lee Wallace
Feat. Roddy McDowall, William Ragsdale, Traci Lind…; William Ragsdale returns as Charley Brewster, now a college freshman who is tormented by the undead sister of the vampire from the first film. While…
Smoke 'em If You Got Em (1988): Dir. Ray Boseley
Feat. George Huxley, Nique Needles; The apocalypse inspires a group of loutish adolescents to throw a party, in spite of their guests dying from radiation sickness! Bizarre comedy…
Crazy Love (Love Is a Dog from Hell) (1987): Dir. Dominique Deruddere
Feat. Josse De Pauw, Geert Hunaerts, Michael Pas…; Superlative tragicomedy based on the work of Charles Bukowski is told in three parts – pre–pubescence, acne plagued teenagehood and…
Screamplay (1986): Dir. Rufus Butler Seder
Feat. George Kuchar, Katy Bolger; Tacky amusement can be found in this midnight flick about a splatter movie writer whose nightmare visions become frighteningly real!
No Surrender (1985): Dir. Peter Smith
Feat. Bernard Hill, Michael Angelis, Joanne Whalley…; Black comedy has the unfortunate Angelis getting himself into some hot water when he takes over the managment of a seedy Liverpool club. From the pen…
Funeral, The (1984): Dir. Juzo Itami
Feat. Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto; A Buddhist funeral service for a brothel owner makes an ideal vehicle for both fiendish black comedy and social satire. An assured debut from the…
Mixed Blood (1984): Dir. Paul Morrissey
Feat. Marilia Pera, Richard Ulacia; Appropriately loose and ironic black comedy about gang and drug shenanigans in NYC from Warhol's factory alumni, Morrissey.
Ultimate Solution of...Grace Quigley, The (1984): Dir. Anthony Harvey
Feat. Katharine Hepburn, Nick Nolte; Curious black comedy features Hepburn as a lonely widower who enlists hitman Nolte to hasten her demise.
What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984): Dir. Pedro Almodovar
Feat. Carmen Maura; Carmen Maura plays a delirious feminist housewife in this early black–comic farce from Almodovar, here working at his freshest and most…
Love Butcher, The (1982): Dir. Mikel Angel, Donald M. Jones
Feat. Eric Stern; Amusing sleaze/cheesefest about a retarded, sexually frustrated gardener (Eric Stern) who harbours a slick, womanizing alter–ego, not to…
Montenegro (1981): Dir. Dusan Makavejev
Feat. Susan Anspach, Erland Josephson, Marianna Jacobi; A bored housewife gets caught up in Slavic sex and violence and discovers that she quite likes it. Unpredictable and weird, things become wickedly…
Buffet Froid (Cold Cuts) (1979): Dir. Bertrand Blier
Feat. Gerard Depardieu, Bernard Blier, Jean Carmet…; When his lost switchblade turns up as a murder weapon, petty crim Gerard Depardieu goes on the lam in a nightmarish Paris, several disreputable…
Despair (1977): Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Feat. Dirk Bogarde; Fassbinder's blackly comic adaptation of Nabakov's novel about delusion, depression and decline of the human spirit. Dirk Bogarde plays a Russian…
Homebodies (1974): Dir. Larry Yust
Feat. Douglas Fowley, Ruth McDevitt, Frances Fuller; A blackly humourous yarn about a group of retired tenants who are willing to go to extremes to prevent eviction. Inventive genre pic belies its low…
Love and Anarchy (1973): Dir. Lina Wertmuller
Feat. Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Eros Pagni; Cult director Lina Wertmuller's political parable about the would–be assassin of Mussolini who falls in love with a prostitute at his…
Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972): Dir. Peter Medak
Feat. Alan Bates, Janet Suzman; Rewarding black comedy stars Alan Bates and Janet Suzman as a couple with an autistic child whom they consider mercy–killing. Bizarre yet…
Pink Flamingos (1971): Dir. John Waters
Feat. Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey…; John Waters' creative pinnacle (or nadir!) remains the ultimate statement in bad taste – a pure, unadulterated exercise in shock value!…
Where's Poppa? (Going Ape) (1970): Dir. Carl Reiner
Feat. George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Ron Leibman…; George Segal becomes determined to hurry along the demise of his ultra–demanding, super–senile 87 year–old mom (Ruth Gordon). Few…
Plot Against Harry, The (1969): Dir. Michael Roemer
Feat. Harry Plotnik; Repentent racketeer Harry Plotnik is released from jail, but his plans to go legit in New York's Jewish community become inadvertently thwarted by…
Sadisterotica (1967): Dir. Jess Franco
Feat. Janine Reynaud, Rosanna Yanni, Adrian Hoven; Eurotrash comedy–thriller about a foxy private eye whose insignia is imprint of her red lips!? She teams with another babe to pursue a nasty…
Nothing but the Best (1964): Dir. Clive Donner
Feat. Alan Bates, Denholm Elliott, Harry Andrews; Ruthless real estate agent Alan Bates grubs and grafts a way upwards, out of his working–class background and into the snobbish…
Little Shop of Horrors (1960): Dir. Roger Corman
Feat. Mel Welles, Jack Nicholson; Hammy black comedy about that ferocious, carnivorous plant named Audrey. A Corman quickie, shot in two days, still remains one of his best, plus it…
Comic Strip Presents: Mr Jolly Lives Next Door / Dirty Movie: Dir. Stephen Frears
Feat. Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson; Two of the darker "Comic Strip" TV Comedies, starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson.

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Subgenre Sampler