The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Parody (in the sense used on this site) is a form of Comedy that spoofs other works. Usually in parodies, a particular work or entire genre is taken where its elements and tropes are comically exaggerated or punctured. The most common parodies here are of other films and tv shows, sometimes of other media like books and comic-books.
The superhero parody began with tv’s Batman (1966-8) and its deliberate puncturing of the tone of the comic-book. This begat a long line of superhero parodies, even a mini-spate of ones about superheroes with no powers. Other genres to have attracted a sizeable number of parodies has been the Vampire Film and the Slasher Film.
The British Carry On films of the 1960s took a different genre with each film and played it for raucous farce. Mel Brooks cornered the field on parodies during the 1970s, spoofing a different movie genre with each film. Airplane (1980) popularised the spoof movie and created a number of copycat comedies based around spoofing either genres or individual films. The parody of the individual film is also frequently the stuff of short sketches on tv comedy shows.
The 2000s saw the popularity of the Scary Movie franchise, which spoofed assorted horror films, repeating them with a series of crude and vulgar gags and led to many imitators. This led to the rise of directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer whose line of empty-headed and inane gags based on recent hits took the genre to its nadir.
A slasher musical??? The mind does a double takes trying to process the incongruity of the genre mash-ups. That said, this works exceedingly well – neither compromising on the slasher aspects, yet equally delivering some clever and witty musical numbers
Film from one of the producers of Scary Movie that heads for the same lowbrow comedy routines while spoofing 80s horror films
An extraordinary example of the fan film where Finnish filmmakers created a parody of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5, with effects that rival those of A-list studio fare made on their home computers
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, behind parody films like Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie, turn to The Hunger Games. There is all the usual inanity and celebrity mocking of their films, although they do seem to make a film that is only marginally less moronic than usual
Unfunny comedy in which husband and wife John Ritter and Pam Dawber are trapped in Hell, which consists of various parodies of popular tv shows
Appealingly quirky film that pays homage to the alien invaders genre of the 1950s as filtered through post-E.T. sensibilities where the invaders still live in a fifties timwarp
After Defendor and Kick-Ass all coming out within a short space of time, the superhero with no powers comedy was getting over-familiar but this outing from James Gunn still finds some new things and proves highly amusing
An amusing superhero spoof from the UK, a mockumentary following the everyday Bob, who is rather of a twit, as he goes on a date and his frustrations dealing with the bureaucracy required to go into action
A Scary Movie-styled parody of the early 00s spate of superhero films, this has a few amsingly on-target spoofs of its targets (especially Spider-Man) but is mostly scattershot
Animated parody of the Tarzan films made with a very adult sense of humour that was banned in several countries as a result
South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone conduct an hilarious parody of Gerry Anderson via real world politics and a very adult sense of humour
Written by and starring 80s Scream Queen Brinke Stevens, this offers an occasionally amusing comedy take on the possession and exorcism film
Hallmark mini-series set in a world 200 years after the classic fairytales have occurred, this wittily deflates or contrasts classic story elements with the present-day
Another crude and witless genre parody in the vein of Jason Friedberg-Aaron Seltzer of Epic Movie, Disaster Movie et al notoriety. I there is anything worse than that it is surely a failed attempt to imitate them
An excruciating fan-made parody of The Hobbit films filled with amateur actors delivering performances in ridiculous falsettos. What makes this mind-boggling is its realisation it can’t compete with Peter Jackson on effects, resulting in things like Smaug played by a drag queen
Canadian-made parody of a cheesy 1950s SF film that emerges more wittily amusingly than most Deliberately Bad SF Films
The film that launched the name of Troma Films. The world’s first superhero splatter film, this readily dives into bad taste just to see what kind of offence it can get away with
From Larry Blamire, a deliberately ridiculous spoof of the 1950s alien invasion film. Blamire’s dialogue and the deadpan with which everybody plays is frequently hilarious
A excruciatingly unfunny film that feels like one of Abbott and Costello’s monster bashes played as a crass frat comedy
A Roger Corman produced horror parody that conducts send ups of most of the horror icons of the 1980s – Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, Michael Meyers etc – without being particularly funny
Made to coincide with the Leonardo DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet, this Troma offering sets out to conduct as many bad taste variations on Shakespeare as it can
An amusing parody of the Backwoods Brutality film where the hillbillies are likeable innocents and the college kids end up killing themselves in a series of bizarre accidents. Amusing, although in the end is only a one-joke film
Supposedly an Airplane-styled movie parody that takes on 2001: A Space Odyssey (although this soon gets forgotten), this is one of the most painfully unfunny films ever made
A series of parody sketches based around the popularity of Weird Al Yankovic who plays the owner of a struggling cable tv station
Conceived in the aftermath of the Austin Powers films, this is a rather funny parody of the Blaxploitation film from Spike Lee’s cousin Malcolm D. Lee
A parody of the slasher film with an amusing central idea – what if a slasher maniac found a love interest and wanted to give up hacking and slashing to be with them?
Dismissed at the time as a copy of Young Frankenstein even though it had been made earlier, this is a none too funny vampire comedy featuring David Niven as Dracula
The movie parodies of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer witlessly run a series of crude, unfunny gags over films and celebrities of the previous twelve months vintage. Here they take on the Twilight series
Sequel to Anthony Hickox’s Waxwork, which ups the number of horror homages but suffers a low budget
An amusing take on the Japanese Monster Movie that takes place in the aftermath of a monster battle as various government agencies debate what do with the carcass of a giant monster lying in the countryside
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the trio behind Shaun of the Dead, return to conduct a very similar effort – the story of a pub crawl that is affectionately mocking the characters’ nowhere lives, before taking an abrupt dogleg turn to become a comedic take on the alien body snatchers film
Mel Brooks’ finest moment, a witty stylistic homage to and spoof of the Universal Frankenstein films. A great cast are on perfect form all around.
The epic fantasy quest film is well due a parody, unfortunately this majorly unfunny effort written by its leading man Danny McBride only makes a beeline for the witless and vulgar