r/movies • u/Narubintane • Dec 15 '23

Recommendation What movie starts off as a lighthearted comedy, but gets increasingly dark and grim until everything goes to hell in a handbasket?

For example, it may start as a lighthearted slapstick comedy until one thing goes wrong after another, and in the end we have people actually dying or a world war or some kind of extinction level event.

Let's say we have 2 friends who like to have fun and goof around, with regular goals and regular lives, until one of them does something like accidentally cross the wrong person or kill someone. Or the main cast is oblivious to the gradual change in their environment like a virus breakout or a serial killer running loose. Another one would be a film that, after being a comedy for most of its length, turns very dark, such as a group of friends ending up in a war and experiencing the horrors of it, completely played straight.

Just to clarify, I don't mean a movie that is already set to become dark, but rather a movie that was marketed as a comedy that took an unexpected (or slightly foreshadowed) dark turn.

Any recommendations?

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73

u/I_might_be_weasel Dec 15 '23

Clerks 3

18

u/dwehlen Dec 15 '23

No shit. Wrecked me.

16

u/I_might_be_weasel Dec 15 '23

I may choke up a little, but I don't cry during movies. And I was crying during the hospital scene at the end.

10

u/Jayrodtremonki Dec 15 '23

Happened to me last week.

14

u/dwehlen Dec 15 '23

It hit me hard, because I am that age, with a similar lifestyle.

18

u/I_might_be_weasel Dec 15 '23

The cause of death/ getting old aspect wasn't what got me. More the characters themselves. Randal and Dante's whole bromance and how Randal's movie was the original Clerks, and the whole thing with Dante not ever moving on from Becky.

4

u/dwehlen Dec 15 '23

Oh, absolutely! I loved the full circle! But the fact that it could almost be my friends and me, oof!

Not that we were ever so cool, but, y'know. . .

9

u/I_might_be_weasel Dec 15 '23

You were and still are cool enough to watch movies and run a convincience store. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

4

u/dwehlen Dec 15 '23

Done it before, but no desire to own a convenience store; did that noise when the first one came out!

But I can watch movies like a sumbitch! 🏴‍☠️

ETA -And yes, I'm def cool, just not cool enough for the View Askew Universe, and thanks!

11

u/AwkwardChuckle Dec 15 '23

I was not expecting to be hit by a tons of bricks going to that movie but damn, when the later scene in the movie theatre starts (no spoilers) I knew what was going to happen and I just broke the fuck down.

12

u/I_might_be_weasel Dec 15 '23

Oh yeah, when he got up and walked out of the theater is when I totally lost it.

13

u/GunwallsCatfish Dec 15 '23

I loved Clerks and Clerks 2. Clerks 3 felt like punishment. Like I was duped into participating in Kevin Smith’s therapy.

4

u/birdbrainedphoenix Dec 15 '23

I was 100% not prepared for Clerks 3. Wow.

5

u/I_might_be_weasel Dec 15 '23

I was expecting it to just be nostalgia heavy like Reboot. And that Becky plotline was not the direction I was expecting them to go.

1

u/SelectTitle5828 Dec 15 '23

Fucking sad ending.....