Anyone else experienced this weird phenomenon? You know, you're watching something and it's supposed to be scary or threatening or gross or whatever, but you find yourself stifling a giggle? Or releasing an all-out belly laugh? Im not talking about horror flicks that are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or downright hilarious, but ones that just appeal to a demented impulse in you that causes guffaws and chuckles?

For me, it was a crowded cinema in about 1999/2000, when I went with a couple of friends to see the ghost flick Stir of Echoes. For some weird reason I just find Kevin Bacon really funny. At moments of tension i was trying not to giggle at his facial expressions or the way he delivered his lines. Then in the sex scene, where he pushes his wife off after experiencing a vision, and remarks, "felt like I was bein attacked..." I lost it, erupting into laughter and causing a few people to turn in their seats and give me "will you SHUT UP!" looks. Now, some of Stir of Echoes is meant to elicit a chuckle, but I was laughing out loud at entirely inappropriate moments, leading my friends to question a) their choice in friends, and b) whether I was actually completely (as opposed to mildly) insane.

This happens to me a lot - particularly in gory scenes. I never laughed so hard throughout an entire movie as I did when I watched "The Dead Next Door" - the vocal dubbing, the head swallowing the finger and then having it come out the neck after swallowing... damn.... I thought I was going to die laughing.

I also laugh uncontrollably during particularly cool kill scenes - my absolute favorite part of "Jason Lives" is when the Sherrif is broken in half backward... man, I rolled.

Now that I think about it, I have Kevin Bacon issues too... in the original Friday the 13th I always laugh at the way that he says a sentence and then follows it with a quick "he he" laugh over and over and over. "Looks like it's gonna storm, he he... We'd better move inside, he he"... I'm laughing now just thinking about it...

The 2006 remake of The Wicker Man is the #1 offender in this category. Nic Cage's acting is so bad in this that it's hilarious.

You have to see this hilarious trailer someone made: http://youtube.com/watch?v=v_mW8mBzmHo

Sounds like a nervous tension thing.

People deal with disturbing concepts/situations in different ways: some people experience the whole fight or flight thing, some people giggle nervously, some people laugh outright.  If it's any consolation, you probably would have made a good viking berserker or something.

Myself, I find around 75% of horror movies at least mildly hilarious anyway--I've just learned to keep my sniggering to myself and stifle more serious laughter.  The Saw movies (at least the ones I saw: I haven't gotten around to seeing the last one yet) and Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween were especially entertaining in this regard.

And, to set the record straight, Kevin Bacon is really funny. 

I'll have to see the Wicker Man now...I wasnt going to coz it looked lame, but maybe thats the reason to watch :)

Bad dubbing is always great fodder for laughs. And Horror Czar I'm with you on the Sheriff-snap, i'd forgotten that one!

Awesome...it makes me feel better to know I'm not the only one who finds Kevin Bacon hilarious!

watching the wickerman is a waste of time

'(even if its funny) trust me i've done it

i laughed throughout the entire "wrong turn 2", the plot, the actors, the deaths, all of it was hillarious (in a sad way, i was hoping it was nearly as decent as the first one). and yes, Kevin Bacon leaves out the scare in many movies (even that one when he was invisible, what was that again?).

 Hollow Man.  Kevin Bacon is an OK actor. Stir of Echos was not that bad of a movie.

Woops my mouthing off has made me leave out important details again...don't get me wrong, I actually think Kevin Bacon is a fine actor, and I really enjoyed Stir of Echoes despite LMAO a fair few times. For some reason, I just find his face/mannerisms/expressions and voice really amusing. But I'm nuts :) I also find Charlie Sheen hilarious...he doesnt even have to do anything, I can look at a still photo of him and I lose it...

I don't think kevin bacon is a bad actor but i agree with attrage he just so funny he can't make horror movies. and hollow man is not so bad, it works for sunday afternoon

I have a theory .. you can't insult Kevin Bacon in front of a girl because deep down every girl kinda digs Kevin Bacon. I'll admit it yeah he can be a corny actor, but even though I don't want to I kinda dig Kevin Bacon.

What do you think freakycreepiechic?

i always laugh at the parts were a zombie eats someone like in Day of The Dead. i cant hold in my laughter. its funny but i have no clue why. my dad gave me the look like 'what is wrong with you?' it was hilarious.  

Sorry, it's not FreakyCreepieChic, but I second that emotion.  I don't know what it is about him, he's not a great actor, not exactly good looking, yet I find some kind of liking him.  Oh well, I guess that's why he's a star - he has that indefinable quality.

Hey -- yeah -- that is just so damn weird.  My ex had the hugest crush on Kevin Bacon.  What's up with that?  Then there's that whole six degrees thing.  What is up with the baconator?

Who is this man?  What is the source of his uncanny powers?  Alien? Voodoo?

He even has his own band.   Ah-ha

He has a pact with Satan.

 Well Kevin is OK as an actor. I remember when he was on Guiding Light the day time soap. Kevin is married to the chic on The Closer, I love her, Kyra Sedgewick is hot! Yes MadMolly I dig him in a way.

Who insulted Kevin Bacon?  All we did was say that he was hilarious...which he is.  I would say that's a good thing.  The man is a genius level comedic actor--the fact that this might be entirely unintentional on his part is completely irrelevant.  ;-)

Anyway, his acting has never done anything but bring a smile to my face (I've been enjoying his acting since the first Tremors), and it was never--never, I say---my intention to show disrespect to the inimitable Kevin Bacon (may the angels sing the dear lamb to his rest at night). 

Now, if you want a pretty-boy exhibiting craptastic, wooden acting to mock and vigorously excoriate, well then you should look no farther than Jon Bon Jovi in Vampires: Los Muertos.  The horror, the horror....(shudder).

And now to roll this thread back on track, I'm gonna ball up and say that The Happening may be one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies I've ever seen.  The entire theater I was at in New York laughed hysterically the whole way through the film.  In fact, I honestly doubt I've ever seen a crazier, dumber script in a horror movie.  In conclusion, I would like to say "I'm going to tell you a math riddle."

SLEEPAWAYCAMP

Oh of course.  Always.  Crazy wacked-out twist and all.

Yeah, I just saw The Happening this afternoon.  There were elements I liked, but it was pretty damned hokey.  I liked Shyamalan a lot better before he got so pretentious and preachy.  His movies have become hilarious just because he's so full of himself as he tries to make his 70's B movie retreads just so very gravid with meaning.  Did anybody see when he put himself as the "oh so brilliant but doomed writer" in Lady in the Water (I'm glad I don't have his nerve in my tooth)? Looks like somebody has just a touch of the old Messianic complex.   

I had hoped for so much more from him than for him to become such a cheesemeister.  :-(

You know, he was supposed to be in this one.  He's listed in the credits as the guy texting/calling the wife.  Maybe he was physically cut out of seeing him in the actual film.

I thought I did see Shyamalan in The Happening.  Of course, now you mention it I can't pin-point just where I saw him.  It seems like he was either in the train station before they got on the train or on the train itself.  Damned if I can remember for sure now, though...

I hope this doesn't mean there's different versions of the movie floating around--that would be an almost unbearable amount of hokum. 

He doesn't get mocked nearly enough for putting himself in his own movies.  It was bad enough when Stephen King started turning up in the movie adaptations of his stories (at least he had the decency to have the characters he portrayed be common schmoes or even outright rubes, not the savior of human-kind like Shyamalan). 

Everyone knows what's going to happen.  When this comes out on dvd, it's going to probably be in "unrated, superspecial, director's cut" version.  lol.  In other words, there may or may not be different versions floating around yet....but there probably will be.  lol.

And as for Stephen King, at least from what I've seen, he saw his role as less important to the story.  A literal cameo if you will.  (role as Jordy Verill in Creepshow notwithstanding) Shymalan's different.  He likes his role to be germane to the story somehow.  So you get him being the guy in the car in Signs....afforementioned Lady in the Water....and, if IMDB is right, the outside stressor on Wahlberg's marriage in Happening.

 Oh no doubt.  ;-)

Ok, I had to throw this out there.  Theres a movie from 1971 that I saw last night on Monsters HD.  It's called "Dracula Vs. Frankenstein".  It's so hysterically bad that I had the tv on mute most of the film (because I was working on something else), and I could STILL tell that it was awful.  I mean, without the lines, you could see the horrible makeup on frankenstein and dracula and you could still tell that you were indeed watching a scene, for example, that involved a woman with very ample...assets..., a hero-type guy, a freaky scientist in a wheelchair, a crazy mentally deficient fat man, and a dwarf in a carnival ringmaster outfit holding an axe.  I did some online research after the fact and found my favorite review quote about it.  From Dvdverdict.com, their final "verdict" on the movie:  "After enduring this movie, the jury hangs themselves."

Well, if you're gonna go there, cryptic, you can't leave out Plan 9 from Outer Space. (People call Plan 9 the all-time worst movie ever, but I don't see how a movie that is so entertaining, even if unintentionally so, can be called the worst movie ever.)

While I see your point, and agree that entertainment value immediately raises a movie from being simply "bad", I see your Plan 9 from Outer Space and raise you the equally hysterically abysmal Troll 2.

Alrighty, then. Thanks for the recommendation! I'll be watching that one shortly!

Definately not a funny movie but the most funny thing ive experienced in a horror movie was when me and my mate went to see the Exorcist when it was re-released. My mate is this massive red headed psycho lookin' dude who's always crackin' jokes. Anyway, we sat next to this little guy who was there with his girlfriend and as the movie progressed this guy just hunched deeper and deeper into his seat until he was peering over his knees. THen when it got really quiet my massive psycho lookin mate has gone "BLAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!" and turned and grabbed him and it scared the shit out of him so bad he screamed like a 4 year old and the whole cinema lost it. Everyone was giggling for about the next ten minutes and I remember thinking 'you poor bastard, just got totally pwned in front of his girlfriend.' Still, funniest shit ever. I have trouble watching the exorcist now without having a chuckle.

Well seeing that i'm on a japanese horror kick I recently bought and watched a movie called the last supper. I was laughing the whole movie. It's about a plastic surgeon that loves the taste of human flesh and it goes into this underground flesh eating group in Japan. Absolutely hilarious especially the wedding at the end. Nudity too which is always a plus in my book.

Cabin Fever!  Funnier than any comedy ever.  I'd rather sit through a High School Musical marathon than sit thru that again.

Geez....put one random kid in a movie who yells PANCAKES and starts ninja kicking everyone in slow-motion and they NEVER let you forget it.  lol

Raiders of the Damned. That or The Evil Behind You. Holyyy fuck.

I think Sleepy Hollow definitely has to fall under this category. I mean I thought it was really good don't get me wrong but it was certainly unintentionally funny. I think it was the obviously feminized Ichabod Crane that made it that way. Brilliant on Johnny's part in my opinion but I have to admit I'm not sure it was intended to come across that funny. Oh another one is Nite Tales. I just finished watching it again so it's fresh in my mind. It was supposed to be all serious slasher film-ish and for the most part it did fulfill it's goals, but there were certainly some parts in there that you just can't help but laugh at even though they're supposed to be funny. Particularly the mentally retarded looking brother of the head cannibal guy. When he's in the kitchen doing that weird thing with his hand I just couldn't stop cracking up. It was supposed to be creepy, but I just couldn't keep a straight face.

I'm not so sure that Sleepy Hollow was unintentionally funny. A lot of it seemed fairly intentional to me, especially Ichabod and Johnny's portrayal of him. I could be wrong though, I'd have to watch it again.

The same goes for Nite Tales. One thing I liked about the film was that it never took itself too seriously, and hell - with Flavor Flav as the host, there was definitely something intentional about the humor.

I agree.  Other than Jack Sparrow, Depp's best performance.  Tim Burton injects humor in all his films (that I've seen).

Haa, I love Sleepy Hollow <3

Yeah I can't even take Christopher Walken seriously when he's supposed to be the creepy headless horseman. He makes me laugh just seeing his facial expressions. It's like he has a million of them... but all the same.

I love Walken in the Prophecy though.  Viggo too.

phantasm.

just watched it for the first time, laughed uncontrolably at the guy running through the woods with the panties in his mouth! seriously how long can you forget that there are panties hanging off of your face?

funny that you mention Phantasm. I can remember the first time I saw it and the slow motion scene where Micheal saw the Tall Man near Reggie's ice cream truck scared the crap out of me. Seeing it years later at a midnight screening the theater laughed like hell!

I find myself amused at more than 80% of the horror movies I watch. However, one that has remained a running joke for giggles and random quotes has been Mortuary.

*Smokey the Bear voice* Together we can prevent graveyard babies.

Phantasm has some unintentionally funny ones for sure. My fav is the fly on the fishing line, and Mike and Jody wrestling around with it in the coat. Or while in the "white room" with the chrome gateways, after Mike has fallen through came this gem when Mike and Reggie figure it all out;

Mike: "They have to crush them down, because of the gravity, and the heat. And this is a doorway to their planet!

Reggie: Snapping his fingers "Yeah and these guys are all ready to go" It just has me on the floor.

Parts of the original The Shining just have are damned funny as well. When Shelly Duvall is running through the hotel and sees the guy in the dog costume about the blow the other guy cracks me up. Or the initial interview in the beginning - I kept thinking what person would hire this oddball for anything? It's just funny watching Nicholson trying to be normal after he has been in character most of the time.

In 28 Days Later when the helicopter pilot starts chopping all of the infected up with his rotor gets a chuckle whenever I see it. Another would be Escape From LA - I still think Carpenter was trying to play it straight and it  just came out funny as hell.

However I think the one movie that takes the cake for being unintentionally funny was Doomsday. I think it should be sold and remarketed as a comedy and it would probably do great business and have rave reviews.