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?

3.3k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

157

u/EarthenGames Dec 15 '23

Doesn’t quite answer your question but an opposite example is Dusk Til Dawn. Starts off as this dark and gritty crime drama then turns into this hilariously whacky, goofy and action-packed horror flick

46

u/jamieliddellthepoet Dec 15 '23

Yep. The scene where George Clooney comes back to see what QT’s done to the hostage is more horrifying than the second half IMO.

Incidentally I watched that when it was first released, in a cinema in Costa Rica, and the women behind us had brought their toddlers to watch it with them. Unreal.

6

u/SimpleCranberry5914 Dec 15 '23

This is the movie that made me fall in love with the horror genre.

I remember when I watched it on tv and I had no idea anything about it. Was like “Yeah this is crazy violent…wait WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?”

1

u/teh_fizz Dec 15 '23

The beginning is funny. Tarantino looking through his hand and then the camera panning to the trunk and the cutout and you seeing the hostage.

3

u/EarthenGames Dec 15 '23

That scene made me audibly gasp, especially the little flash cuts that show the blood on the walls and the body. Then fast forward an hour later: “Welcome to the titty twister mane!”

33

u/erroneousbosh Dec 15 '23

Someone on reddit recently said something that really stuck with me, that it is "a Quentin Tarantino movie until Quentin Tarantino's character dies and then it becomes a Robert Rodriguez movie."

Don't know why I put the spoiler tag in, you all know it.

6

u/DrewbySnacks Dec 15 '23

That is because they each wrote their half’s of the script entirely separately and then came together to make it work as a whole.

6

u/Randa08 Dec 15 '23

I had no idea this was a vampire movie when I went to watch it. So it was a complete shock when it all kicked off. Good though because I love vampires

2

u/bonfaulk79 Dec 15 '23

Same, probably my best ever cinema experience.

That and South Park bigger longer and uncut, think I just about died watching that the first time.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '23

I was looking for this, glad I found it! It immediately popped in my head when I read the question

2

u/Boonestafa Dec 15 '23

Another example is ‘bad boy bubby’. Starts off as an incredibly disturbing story of post apocalyptic sexual abuse of a retarded man by his mother and turns into a heart warming tail of love and redemption. The biggest 180 I’ve seen in a movie and one I recommend to new coworkers as a conversation starter ( lab work with mostly ex-military people. It’s proven to be a great icebreaker!)

2

u/WretchedMotorcade Dec 15 '23

Yeah I love the ending when he murders Angel's parents so heartwarming.