One of the main clichés used within the Comedy Horror genre are that of the Characters. They tend to exaggerations on the stereotypes of teenagers and over played to make the film funnier, this tends to mean than you can't really sympathise with those being killed or victimised.
These stereotypical teenage characters can be seen in many Slasher films including Cabin In The Woods where these character clichés are most definitely evident.
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| From Left To Right; Holden, Dana, Curt, Jules, Marty |
The Virgin: Dana
The Athlete: Curt
The Whore: Jules
The Scholar: Holden
The Joker: Marty
Cabin In The Woods makes that these characters were made to die obvious by the final scenes when they are the surviving characters are told that they were meant to fight to survive so "The Ancient Ones" wouldn't be freed from their capture which is what happens if all put to the test die. Cabin In The Woods also creates good comedy around the horror that ensues by making the "save the world" situation into a betting game with those who control the creatures and monsters that the group must defeat to stop the "Ancient Ones".
There is usually one main convention of Comedy Horrors. This of course is the ridiculous deaths of the characters, the main death being the stereotypical and usually first death of the lovers being murdered during in intercourse. Used quite often in Slasher horrors. Comedy Horror tends to use the "death by sex" scene first always seeming the most inappropriate and unfortunate time to die. As well as this Comedy Horror is well known for it's OTT deaths, one great examples of these are The Final Destination series, although the films are meant to be genuine horror as the series grew the deaths got more and more ridiculous and series turned into more Comedy Horror than actual fear invoking Horror.
Some examples of these over the top deaths include;
The Shower Death
The Sunbed Death
The Nail Gun Death
The Escalator Death
The villains are also quite often made to be exaggerated horror cliché. With films such as Scary Movie make a mockery out of classic Horror Villains like Ghost Face from Scream, Billy the Puppet from Saw and the possessed girl from Exorcist.
Top 10 Comedy Horrors according to Mojo gives you some idea of just how Comedy Horror works and how they are continually successful and create a large following:
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