Horroris a varied and diverse genre, going from complex stories that dive deep into human nature to mostly silly adventures for everyone who prefers their entertainment to scare them a little bit. It’s what makesthe horror genresuch a fun one to explore—there’s something for every taste in it. Another great thing about horror is that it knows when to poke fun at itself and when not to take itself too seriously.
There are plenty of horror flicks that are one great metanarrative joke about horror’s most common tropes, as well asseveral movies that rest on premises that would test anyone’s suspension of disbelief.That doesn’t make them any less entertaining, though, and some of these stories aregreat horror moviesdespite the ridiculousness of their premise, plot, or characters.
Night of the Lepus
Cast
Night of the Lepus is a science fiction horror film directed by William F. Claxton, released in 1972. The movie portrays a small town in the American Southwest besieged by giant mutant rabbits, following a hare population control experiment gone awry, leading to a desperate struggle for survival.
Night of the Lepushas a premise that is as simple as it is outlandish, and it all starts, as it often does in horrors, with a scientific experiment gone terribly wrong. In this case, one hormone-boosted rabbit, part of a larger experiment to try and disrupt the rabbits’ breeding cycle and affect their population numbers, escapes its lab and soon begins to roam around town and mutilate people with a horde of its genetically mutated fellow bunnies.
Night of the Lepusis an absolutely terrifying movie if one stumbles upon it as a child, but a genuinely funny flick to watch as an adult. The special effects are not that advanced and the plot following a horde of murderous rabbits isn’t exactly scary when looked at it rationally. Still,it belongs to that category of movies that might not be the best in quality but that are still so incredibly entertaining to watch.
Fall
Fall is a thriller that follows best friends Becky and Hunter as they embark on a perilous adventure, climbing a remote, abandoned radio tower. Stranded at 2,000 feet, the duo must rely on their climbing expertise to endure harsh conditions and confront their deepest fears in a fight for survival.
Fallhas no monstrous creatures or particularly gory scenes, belonging instead to the realm of psychological horror where thefear comes from the absolute dread that arrives when one finds oneself in an impossible situation. Except that the situation in question is particularly ridiculous, as is how it’s ultimately solved.
Fall True Story & Real-Life Inspiration Revealed
Netflix’s Fall tells the story of two women who find themselves trapped at the top of a 2,000ft TV tower - but is the film actually based in reality?
The story follows best friends Becky and Hunter as they climb a 2000-foot-high TV tower in the middle of the desert. Once they attempt to come back down, though, the ladder they had used breaks off and strands them on the tower, with no signal to call for help and very few provisions to sustain them. Despite its premise,Fallmanages to deliver a pretty chilling story that touches on themes of grief and resilience—as well asFall’s third-act plot twist and ending.
The Boy
The Boy is a psychological horror film directed by William Brent Bell. It stars Lauren Cohan as Greta, a young American woman who is hired to care for a lifelike doll by an elderly couple in an English village. As Greta begins to suspect the doll may be alive, a series of unsettling events challenge her understanding of reality.
Horror would not be the same without itscreepy doll sub-genre, andThe Boymakes very generous use of this particular trope. The main character is American traveler Greta Evans, who is hired as a nanny by a wealthy British family whose son—the boy Greta is supposed to take care of—is actually a realistic-looking doll.
The doll, of course, soon begins to make a whole series of terrifying things happen around Greta. Whilethe movie’s ending will reveal that the doll might not have been supernatural—but still no less creepy—what is really ridiculous aboutThe Boyis that Greta doesn’t immediately run away when presented with a doll that she’s supposed to treat like a real boy. She instead embraces her final girl destiny, which, then again, is something that most horror protagonists do.
The Visit
From director M. Night Shyamalan, The Visit follows two siblings who are sent to stay with their estranged grandparents while their mother is out of town on vacation. Realizing that all isn’t what it seems during their stay, the siblings set out to find out what is really going on at their grandparents' home. Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould star as Becca and Tyler, with Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, and Kathryn Hahn making up the rest of the main cast.
The Visit,directed by M. Night Shyamalan, isn’t exactly ridiculousper se. The plot is a perfectly acceptable horror plot, at times unsettling and with its fair number of jump scares—but the whole story is presented with more than a touch of comedy in it.Some scenes ofThe Visitare meant to evoke laughter more than fear, which makes for an entertaining watch but still a pretty ridiculous experience overall.
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M. Night Shyamalan’s found-footage horror The Visit was full of so many creepy and disturbing moments, including jump scares and gross-out attacks.
The story follows siblings Becca and Tyler who go for a five-day stay at their estranged maternal grandparents’ house. Their mom hasn’t seen her parents for fifteen years and the kids have never met them. Of course,said grandparents soon begin to display a series of peculiar or outright concerning behaviorswhich all culminate in the revelation that they aren’t related to Becca and Tyler at all.
Orphan
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Orphan is a psychological horror film in which a couple adopt a mysterious 9-year-old girl named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), only to discover that she is not who she appears to be. Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard star as Kate and John, her adoptive parents.
Another pillar of horror, just like the creepy doll trope, isThe Orphan’s supposedly demonic child—or a child that errs just on that side of unsettling.Orphanseems like the textbook example of this trope since it follows a couple who decide to adopt a nine-year-old girl after the stillbirth of their third child.
The girl, Esther, soon begins to behave weirdly around her new adoptive parents and is outright hostile to her two adoptive brothers.These behaviors increase and grow more concerning as the movie hurtles towards its climax and plot twist—which is where things take a slight turn into the ridiculous. While the third act reveals is pretty entertaining, it comes so far out the left field that it’s impossible to not see it as just a little bit puzzling, a little bit too strange.
The Platform
The Platform is a Spanish sci-fi movie that takes place in a vertical prison where prisoners on the upper levels get the most food and those on the lower levels are left to starve. The 2019 dystopian thriller was released on Netflix to worldwide acclaim.
The Platformis a pretty odd horror movie, one that is more bizarre than ridiculous. While most movies have an undercurrent of social commentary,The Platformmakes its intent of criticizing current society very explicit—a narrative choice that inevitably impacts the movie’s plot and flow.
Our Biggest Unanswered Questions After The Platform
Netflix’s The Platform was another hit for the streaming service, but the dystopian horror movie left many big questions unanswered afterward.
It all starts when the main character, Goreng, wakes up in a mysterious cell. He soon discovers, thanks to his cellmate, that they are in a tower-like prison, where food descends each day on a self-moving platform. Those at the higher levels eat as much as they can, leaving very little for those at the lower levels. Despite its uniqueness,The Platformremains an entertaining movie to watch, especially thanks to the varying cast of characters that Goreng meets as he’s assigned to a new level every month.
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 2 follows a group of strangers as they desperately try to escape an inevitable and gruesome fate after a premonition saves them from a deadly highway pileup. Seeking to cheat death, they must uncover the mysterious pattern of their survival while striving to evade a series of fatal accidents meticulously orchestrated by an unseen force.
The entireFinal Destinationfranchise—consisting of six movies, as well as ten tie-in novels and two comic books—is made up of movies that have ridiculous-sounding plots and are still incredibly entertaining to watch.The very premise of the whole franchise is peculiar, to say the least, with each movie focusing on a group of people who attempt to escape certain death and who inevitably end up dying in the most bizarre and convoluted ways.
Final Destination’s Most Memorable Death Is Not In The First Movie And Remains Disturbing 22 Years Later
The Final Destination franchise is built around gory and outlandish deaths, but there’s one particular example that sticks in the mind too well.
No movie in theFinal Destinationfranchise, though, has leftan everlasting mark on an entire generation likeFinal Destination 2. The opening scene, involving a deadly encounter with a logging truck first and a car carrier later, has been so impactful that the Internet is filled with people joking that they never drive behind one if they can avoid it, just to be on the safer side.
Barbarian
Barbarian follows a young woman who discovers her Airbnb has been double-booked with a stranger already present. Despite initial hesitation, she decides to stay, only to uncover disturbing secrets within the unsettling rental. The film, released in 2022, explores themes of trust and unease in unexpected encounters.
Barbarianis director Zach Cregger’s screenwriting and directorial debut and theperfect example of the fact that a horror movie might have a bit of a ridiculous or bizarre premise but still be utterly terrifying. Like several other horrors,Barbariantakes place inside a single house with an extensive basement, which is where the frightening monster known simply as The Mother lives while she waits for people to kidnap and hold prisoners, acting as if they’re her children.
The premise is a bit of a ridiculous one and The Mother’s character design is at times a bit goofy, stretching the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Still,Barbarianmakes for a great watch with its fair share of jumpscaresthanks also to its cast, which includeshorror aficionado Bill Skarsgård—this timenotin the role of the monsterdu jour.
Midsommar
Ari Aster’s Midsommar follows a group of American college students who travel to a friend’s isolated rural hometown in Sweden to experience their renowned midsummer festival. What starts out as idyllic quickly becomes a disconcertingly violent pagan ritual, with the friends engaged in a ruthless competition that will test more than just their friendship. Florence Pugh stars alongside Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, and William Jackson Harper.
Midsommarisn’t ridiculous in the most traditional sense of the word, but it is bizarre and at times obscure—which only serves to make it that much more unsettling to watch. The main characters’ otherness in the community they are staying with radiates off the screen and expands to the audience, who are leftuncomfortably squirming in their seats as they watch the events unfold.
Midsommaris a mixed bag that blends unsettling horror with bizarre comedy, resulting in a film that’s equal parts fascinating and frustrating. - Sandy Schaefer -ScreenRant’sMidsommerreview
Events start when a group of American students, including protagonist Dani who is reeling from the tragic loss of her sister and her parents, arrive in a small Swedish village to attend midsummer celebrations upon their friend Pelle’s invitation. The atmosphere is immediately strange, with disturbing rituals happening almost as soon as the outsiders arrive, andthe village soon reveals itself to be a brutal and murderous cult which slowly draws Dani into its ranks.
1Us (2019)
A Most Peculiar Premise
Us,directed by Jordan Peeleand starring an ensemble cast led by Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, is one of the best horror movies of recent years. After the great success of Peele’s directorial debutGet Out,Usproved once more the undeniable talent he has when it comes to crafting horror storiesthat really stay with audiences for a long time after the movie has ended.
That, however, doesn’t change the fact thatthe monsters threatening the movie’s main characters are bizarre.The story centers around a family, on vacation with another family of friends, who soon realize they are being targeted by a ground of “Tethered,” their döppelgangers, who are trying to free themselves of the bond that ties their soul together with that of the real person they are a copy of. Despite its sci-fi premise,Usis a fantastichorrorfilm.
