The Slapstick Joy of Speculative Horror Comedy
Mel Brooke’s 1974 work ‘Young Frankenstein’ features the delectable Gene Wilder in the role of the grandson of Dr Frankenstein, also Dr Frankenstein. Shelley’s seminal work (Frankenstein, 1818) laid the groundwork for horror as a genre in the nineteenth century, and when it is adapted to this absurdist comedy set in the atmospheric eeriness of Frankenstein’s Castle, the band of odd characters and their grotesquely comic interactions gives us gems like these: a student asks the junior Dr Frankenstein, “but what about your grandfather’s work, sir?” The ensuing response breaks viewer immersion brilliantly as Dr Frankenstein emphatically responds to the student, “My grandfather’s work was doo-doo!”.
The adolescence of horror-comedy, after skirting around subversive adaptations of classic horror, gets us to the Beetlejuice (with Michael Keaton’s legendary, “It Show
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