Half as good as Shaun of the Dead would be good enough for me

News spotted over at: JoBlo

Maybe my head is screwed on a bit too tight at times, but I'm not the biggest fan of horror comedies. If done well, of course, I love them. Just see my undying appreciation for Shaun of the Dead, or the ages-well An American Werewolf in London. Sometimes, this subgenre can also win me over without knocking me over, such as last year's good-but-not-great English slasher flick The Cottage. But in my opinion, good "horror comedies" are the minority, more akin to never-should've-been-made bile the likes of Broken Lizard's Club Dread, or Idol Hands, or, yes, Snakes on a Plane (some call it "fun," but its thick layers of cheese spoiled fast in my eyes).

When it comes to horror, I take my films seriously. Perhaps too seriously, but so goes it. If I want to laugh, I'll watch Family Guy, or The Office, or Flight of the Conchords. Quality horror, though, is tougher to find, so when I do come across well-made flicks, I want them to either disturb or chill, not amuse (unless they're of the awesomely-bad, The Happening type).

I'm saying all this not to ramble on and on again about the horror genre, but to set-up some horror-comedy news that I'm actually excited about. Chud, shot the shit with SNL regular/all-around-funny-guy Bill Hader out at Sundance, and he revealed a some pretty unexpected yet welcome scoop: he's currently co-writing a slasher-comedy script that director/producer/comedy titan Judd Apatow (The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express) has interest in. As Hader describes it, it'd be a slacker comedy that's "partially STRAW DOGS meets HALLOWEEN meets HOME ALONE meets MONSTER SQUAD." Four films I love....I'm game.

Hader


Apatow


Apatow is one of these Hollywood busy-men who becomes attached to several great-sounding projects at once yet very few of these "announced" films ever materialize. So don't expect to see this slasher-comedy any time soon. But something tells me it'd a winner if it ever surfaces. If I can throw my two-cents in, how about casting Olivia Thirlby as the main slacker's funny, "get out and get a job or I'm leaving you" girlfriend? I read how she and Apatow sort of fell out over her losing a role in Pineapple Express (as she said in New York magazine), but how about giving their union the Patch Adams treatment, for my sake, at least.

Because I really don't see enough of Thirlby, and that's a shame. Looks like I'll have to post a picture here to rectify this:


Much better.