Horror Films Starring Comedians

Unlike most of the people on this list, Marc Price was an actor first and a comedian second. Though he was still playing the Keaton family's lovably goofy neighbor, Skippy, on Family Ties, Price took the lead in this heavy metal horror flick. He played Eddie, a high school outcast that worships the music of heavy metal singer, Sammy Curr. Well, Curr dies and comes back to kill people...blah blah blah. Freddy Krueger he ain't. Sure, the movie showed Price's "edgy" side (he wears an earring!), but failed to make him a movie star. He's since been working as a stand-up, even trying out for one season of Last Comic Standing. He wasn't picked, which had to make him feel like Eddie all over again. Where's Sammy Curr when you need him?

Before hitting it big and then disappearing back into semi-obscurity, Pauly Shore starred in this very, very '80s retelling of Phantom of the Opera. This time, the opera house has been -- as the title suggests -- replaced by a mall. It's about as bad as it sounds. Interestingly, this came out the same year as another POTO remake starring Robert Englund and featuring Saturday Night Live's Molly Shannon in a small role. Pauly Shore, playing yogurt shop employee Buzz, is also one of the only comedians in a horror film that actually survives to the end of the movie, much to the disappointment of viewers. I guess that simple fact says a lot about the role of comedians in horror movies.

Chris Kattan was still a cast member on Saturday Night Live (doing lame but beloved characters like 'Mango' and 'Mr. Peepers') when he took a supporting role in 1999's better-than-expected remake of House on Haunted Hill. He plays the nebbish owner of said house on haunted hill (though I think it was the house, not the hill, that was haunted), and actually comes across as one of the only sympathetic characters in a movie filled with nasty people. He tries to squeeze a few laughs out, too -- mostly by being scared of stuff -- but the movie itself is pretty humorless. Still, it was nice to see him play something other than Chris Kattan...which he would do two years later in Corky Romano: Special Agent.

Essentially just a rip-off of the much better "urban" horror movie Tales from the Hood, Hood of Horror died the quick death it deserved. Comedian, impressionist and former MAD TV cast member Aries Spears shows up in "Rhapsody Askew," (what?) the final story of this awful horror/comedy anthology, playing a murdered MC who comes back from the dead to take revenge on his now-successful partner (a rapper calling himself SOD). There's nothing in the film that calls upon Spears' talents as a comic or impressionist; he registered more during his few minutes of screen time in Josie & the Pussycats.

People probably wouldn't recognize comedian T.J. Miller from his role in the 2009 Blair Witch-meets-Godzilla POV horror film Cloverfield. That's because he spent nearly all of his time behind the "camera," playing Hud -- the guy filming the events and providing constant commentary and wisecracks. While that's a pretty ingenious use of a comedian for a horror movie, you never get the feeling that Miller was allowed to do much improvising; he feels shackled by much of the film's perfunctory dialogue and misfiring attempts at humor. Cloverfield is still a pretty good horror movie, but it might have been better if the T.J. Miller that performs on stage had been allowed to perform behind the camera.

Several years before her days as a cast member on Saturday Night Live (where she created many popular and utterly one-note characters like Mary Catherine Gallagher), Molly Shannon appeared in this umpteenth remake of The Phantom of the Opera. At the time, it was notable for removing the music (Andrew Lloyd Weber's show was hugely popular) and casting horror movie icon Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger himself) in the title role. Shannon plays the best friend to lead ingenue Christine; because most of the film is told as flashback/dream, Shannon only really shows up at the beginning and the end. Still, she's treated better than most comedians in horror movies (meaning she actually makes it to the end credits).

Comedian and all-around fanboy geek Patton Oswalt should have been thrilled to participate in Blade: Trinity (the third film in the successful Blade franchise) in theory; as a fan of both horror films and comic books, Blade would afford him the chance to dip his toes in both genres. Unfortunately, the movie is a sloppy mess and Oswalt is woefully underused -- it becomes apparent pretty early on that he, along with just about everyone else, is simply collecting a paycheck. Still, he claims the experience was worth it just for the stories he can now tell about the filming experience (mostly involving the "eccentricities" of star Wesley Snipes). I guess our loss is his gain.

Comedian and In Living Color star David Alan Grier took a rare non-comedic role in the urban horror anthology Tales from the Hood, playing an abusive stepfather in one of the film's four stories. Like many comedians playing drama, Grier is surprisingly effective and shows an otherwise unseen dark side. I guess his years on In Living Color made it easy to forget that he's a Yale-trained, Tony-nominated actor. At any rate, Grier is very good in this underappreciated horror film; his eventual fate is one of the film's high points and all the more earned because of just how nasty Grier is able to play his character.

A bulked-up Joe Piscopo plays a bulked-up cop in this action/horror/comedy hybrid that -- not surprisingly -- failed to make him a movie star. He stars alongside Treat Williams (prior to his career resurgence in the 1990s) as a pair of cops investigating Williams' murder. Are you getting this? Piscopo is partnered with a zombie cop. Actually, the movie is neither as bad as it sounds or as its reputation would suggest, though Piscopo fails to make much of an impression as an actor or as a comedian. The film's failure may have been the moment when Piscopo realized that by leaving Saturday Night Live, he may have been leaving his best days behind him.

The great Bill Murray's "surprise" cameo in the 2009 horror-comedy Zombieland was ruined early and often, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable. Playing himself as the survivor of the zombie apocalypse, Murray scores the biggest laughs in a movie filled with a lot of big laughs. It's the kind of performance that, in the hands of another star, would have been chalked up to "good sportsmanship"; with Murray, it becomes sublime. This is one of the best -- if not the best -- uses of a comedian in a horror film ever.