Being John Malkovich & 3 comedies that are low-key horror movies
By Leigh Evans
Being John Malkovich is a dark comedy. When viewed in another light, however, it becomes terrifying. We check out this production and three other comedies that could be considered horror movies.
Being John Malkovich is a dark comedy but there are moments when it crosses into full fledged horror. A scene that encapsulates this idea is when the actor travels to the inside of his mind only to be confronted with a world inhabited by multiple versions of himself.
It’s downright terrifying and disturbing. That scene in particular haunts my nightmares and the movie progressively gets more spine tingling from that point on.
The film slides from being a provoking thought piece into unadulterated scares as we see John Cusack inhabit Malkovich’s body in order to sexually assault a woman who has no idea it’s Cusack. In its madness the film works on this premise, have you ever wanted to be someone else?
Metaphors abound and there is no escaping the fact that Being John Malkovich, in the right hands would be a frightening film. John Cusack’s character is a puppet master who by way of a portal is now the master of a human puppet. That sounds like science-fiction tinged with horror to me.
Just imagine what this movie would be like under the direction of David Cronenberg. Which made me think of other productions that lean toward horror. More often than not, we give a pass to comedies and only pay attention to what they show us on the surface, but dig deeper and you’ll find a world worthy of the horror genre.