Black Comedy

Dark Humour

A form of comedy in which serious issues such as cannibalism, rape, genocide, terminal illnesses, etc. are treated humorously. It is humour that makes light of subject matter usually considered taboo. Black comedy is often controversial due to its subject matter. Some dark comedies set out to shock their audiences with their unexpectedly humorous take on a serious subject.

Heathers is a film where the genre is black comedy. The film portrays four teenage girls three of whom are named Heather in a clique at a fictional Ohio high school. It follows a series of events and focuses on murder and suicide. It talks about two young teens who are in a messed up relationship that go around and kill people and play them off as a suicide. It also skims over the issue of terrorism as they try to bomb up the school. However in the end the boy ends up blowing up himself for his cause.
This film links into our in many ways it starts of as something set and typical teen movie then takes a dark turn and passes through subject matters you wouldn’t usually mention and turn it into comedy.

 

Serial Mom is another exapmle of black humour. Focusing on murder, again a film which takes a dark turn when at first you believe it will be something completely different. 

The film is set in a stereotypical American family lifestyle,it shows a loving, dramatic, over the top family, as though its slightly dramatised and adding the comedic value through the over the top acting. It stes out to show a mum which goes out to kill people who hurt there family. Very ridiculous storyline and reasons for her to do it, and in the end she becomes a sort of celebrity. The film is based off of a real life mum in texas, who killed people as her daughter didnt make it on the cheerleading team. So the film take a real life story but uses Black comedy and turns it into something to laugh about when you usually would'nt.