It was time to break up all the horror flicks I’ve been watching with some funny fluff. Did these four flicks do the trick of raising my spirits? Let’s find out.
GHOST BABE (2023)
This light supernatural comedy has a kind of 80s throwback—a classic goofballs conjure up something supernatural vibe. However, it doesn’t quite push the comedy envelope enough to live up to the laughs of the best 80s era ghost comedies.
The black and white opening does perfectly capture that vibe, however. In the golden age of Hollywood, a starlet receives a protective amulet from her lover…right before being murdered by the mob. That amulet clearly didn’t work, so you’d think her revenge as a ghost would be to come back to give her man a piece of her mind for giving her a shitty gift.
Next, we meet the main three cute slacker/surfer type dudes in the current day, making this a new addition to the sausage fest scares page. One of them, who looks exactly like Cary Elwes of Saw, inherits his grandfather’s house, so the trio moves in. Shirts optional. Awesome.
Everything that happens after feels totally underdeveloped. A real estate agent tells them the place is haunted and wants to help them sell it. He clearly has other motives, but he isn’t in the movie enough to be a true foil.
The bear of the bunch, who looks like an even cuter Zach Galifianakis and absolutely steals the show as the only real funny one of the group, seems to have visions, but that’s not explored very much. Unfortunately, a scene with him in only a towel is spoiled when you can see that he’s actually wearing shorts underneath. But man, is he scrumptious.
Anyway, he pushes the other guys to try to contact the starlet’s ghost after it attacks him. They hold a séance. They go to a psychic. They find the starlet’s amulet.
And this is where things get weird in the third act. The starlet appears in solid form, and they start partying with her, but there’s still not much in the way of humor that really hits.
However, there are some kills, yet the guys just write each one off as no big deal and stay chummy with the ghost! It really feels like the script just couldn’t decide how to juggle everything it threw together, and it makes the ending really anticlimactic and loaded with loose ends.
PSYCHO SCIENCE (2024)
Running only 68 minutes long, this low budget indie answers the question “What if Weird Science was a slasher? What it nails the most is the theme song, which is an instrumental copycat of Oingo Boingo’s “Weird Science” theme song. Not to mention, it swaps genders, so we get a stud instead of a babe. Awesome, but no, the main two characters that create him aren’t gay guys. That would have actually made for a better, funnier movie.
In terms of comedy, the film really doesn’t deliver any humorous highlights. So much of the first half features our two main girls going on bad dates, and none of it is all that funny.
Meanwhile, their geeky guy friend creates a machine, which looks like an aluminum foil tower, that can materialize anything you want if you simply feed it a photo of what you desire.
19 minutes in, they decide to create the perfect man to share. Out comes a hottie just undies, and the first thing he does is shower. Yay!
Here’s the weird thing. The girls don’t really share him. He is pretty much exclusively with one girl, while the other girl doesn’t show any signs of jealousy. That could have added a deeper dimension to the plot and played better into the horror and slasher elements.
Instead, the girls discover they fed a photo of a serial killer into the machine. Their creation heads to a cabin in the woods to kill off a group of friends that is introduced halfway through the movie. It’s purely low budget, complete with big tits and a totally hokey, CGI beheading.
When the plot finally circles back to the two main girls, their solution to stopping the murders is absolutely silly and anticlimactic.
GHOUL HOUSE (2021)
Is this 73-minute horror comedy about unexplained cat zombie people and a murderous school bully infiltrating a party absolutely goofy and illogical? Absolutely. Did it totally keep me riveted thanks to perfect auditory and visual 80s vibes? Also absolutely.
We meet the main players at school, and then we movie right to the party. This house is drenched in Argento light colors and strobes, setting the perfect tone. We also get a nonstop synth score and at least four dance montages that feature only like 2 to 4 people dancing, which is kind of funny.
This is the lowest attendance party ever. But the tracks used for the dancing scenes are fantastic: “Moans” by Parade Ground from 1988, and the modern wave track “Rites of Macabre” by The Seance.
The crazy bully, a beefy dude who goes shirtless and is the major comic relief thanks to his over-the-top performance, is outside waiting to crash the party and makes a couple of funny gay jokes throughout the course of the movie, including a sadly thwarted plan to face fuck a dude he wounds.
The cat zombies are also a hoot. The hubby and I both chuckled at the way they moved and made cat sounds.
Only thing is, the cat zombies don’t get inside until 53 minutes into the movie. This doesn’t feel like a very fleshed out script. Nothing is explained, plot points are dropped, and after a bunch of kills, the movie simply ends with the two survivors running off being chased by the cat zombies. Even so, the final act with all the cat zombie chaos in the house is just such a vibe.
1 HOUR TO KILL (2025)
This is a sequel to 6:66 PM, with the same exact cast of characters once again trying to film a ghost hunter show. This time they are checking out a house supposedly haunted by a serial killer.
A good portion of the first part of the film doesn’t do much of anything. The banter as they film on location isn’t all that funny, they do the screaming in unison gag a bit too much, and the most excitement is that the lights go out.
Everything changes when cutie Michael Buonomo comes on the scene.
He is perfectly over-the-top and hilarious in his psychotic need for revenge for his sister, who died at the hands of the serial killer.
He performs a ritual that is meant to cause someone to be possessed by the serial killer’s ghost, which will allow him to then kill the ghost. He chases the ghost hunters in order to track down the one possessed by the serial killer, but the ghost keeps jumping bodies.
The cast hits its comedic stride at this point, especially the always funny Chad Ridgely.
The chase scenes do get a bit repetitive, but the final confrontation in a salt circle makes for a good climax.
