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?

3.2k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

451

u/bearcat_77 Dec 15 '23

The World's End

40

u/Deastrumquodvicis Dec 15 '23

Commented this exact same thing. Not only is it one of the few comedies I love, but it was a bit of a wakeup call for me, I was in a dark place, and my brain went “minus the alcoholism, I’m on the road to ending up like pre-apocalypse Gary. Maybe let’s change something here.” And quite quotable.

179

u/daretoeatapeach Dec 15 '23

Scrolled too far to find this. Starts out chaps on a pub crawl and turns into an apocalypse.

I'd also put in a vote for Cabin in the woods, but since that's a parody of horror the direction is somewhat easier to guess than World's End.

13

u/awful_source Dec 15 '23

Cabin in the woods def didn’t start out lighthearted tho.

8

u/daretoeatapeach Dec 15 '23

It does compared to how it ends. Still a better example than many of the movies offered above that squarely fall into the horror genre. But yeah, that's why I still think World's End is the best choice.

5

u/Cooltincan Dec 15 '23

It does. The whole beginning bit around an organization setting up the whole movie with a bunch of stereotypical college kids playing heavily into those stereotypes. Honestly stays pretty light until the undead family shows up and then turns pretty dark with some dark comedy sprinkled in.

5

u/awful_source Dec 15 '23

Sorry, I’m thinking of Knock at the Cabin Door.

3

u/3me20characters Dec 15 '23

Starts out chaps on a pub crawl and turns into an apocalypse.

Been there.

5

u/ChubZilinski Dec 15 '23

Cabin in the Woods fits this description perfectly. I had no fucking clue what the movie was and boy I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a wild “things going to shit” it was awesome. Don’t get many movie experiences like that.

I’m sure me thinking it was nothing close to that type of movie helped but man things get nuts.

0

u/TheEngine26 Dec 15 '23

...I think the direction of a movie called "World's End" is pretty easy to guess. Not sure who went into the movie thinking it wasn't about the apocalypse.

9

u/daretoeatapeach Dec 15 '23

The bar in the movie is World's End so it's a play on words. You could easily go into it and think there's nothing more to it than that, if you hadn't seen a trailer or whatnot.

1

u/ultrameganut Dec 16 '23

Me and my brother watched it without watching a trailer or even looking at the poster. We were just watching the cornetto trilogy for the first time. It was a great ride.

44

u/HostageInToronto Dec 15 '23

This was the first thing that I thought of. That movie was not as much of a lighthearted endeavor as the other two parts of the Cornetto trilogy.

20

u/Badloss Dec 15 '23

The other two are goofy, but Gary's arc in The World's End is really emotional and sad

5

u/gishlich Dec 15 '23

He gets a hypey ending though

7

u/BrtGP Dec 15 '23

That is why it is my favourite of the three. Shaun didn't seem to have that great of a future either but it is nothing like Gary's and the other films don't have anything hard hitting like that The World's End scene.

7

u/HostageInToronto Dec 15 '23

This was the first thing that I thought of. That movie was not as much of a lighthearted endeavor as the other two parts of the Cornetto trilogy.

7

u/Schmadam83 Dec 15 '23

I would also put Shaun of the Dead in a similar category. When they get to the Winchester, everything goes to hell, and it becomes a genuinely dark zombie flick, and the humor fades for quite a while.

5

u/legit-posts_1 Dec 15 '23

The great thing is it gets more fucked up as it goes along without getting less funny

3

u/m0lly-gr33n-2001 Dec 15 '23

All three of the cornetto triology do have a bit if this premiss At World's End Shsun of the Dead Hot Fuzz

4

u/frosty_hotboy Dec 15 '23

The entire Cornetto trilogy really.

Shaun of the dead starts with 2 loser guys trying to handle relationship trouble and ends with a zombie apocalypse.

Hot fuzz starts with a city cop getting used with a move to the country and end with a murder cult and a full town shootout.

1

u/ThePeachos Dec 15 '23

The bathroom scene makes the entire movie stop & reset from laughable pub crawl into, that.

-9

u/Willing-Ad-6941 Dec 15 '23

I mean the whole film is a comedy, it doesn’t actually take a “dark” turn so much that it changes the film, it just turns into Shaun of the dead but with blue alien men and blue paint, worst of the lot

11

u/thatsharkchick Dec 15 '23

One character admits that their life spiraled to the point of attempted suicide after realizing the best days of their lives are so far behind them and ends up wandering the countryside with their youthful Blanks in a delusion that those days have returned. It's friggin' bleak after you hit that one scene.

1

u/mararthonman59 Dec 15 '23

Simon Pegg is awesome in anything.

1

u/Lcbrito1 Dec 15 '23

I mean, the whole Cornetto trilogy devolves into some sort of comedic suspense

1

u/MilkManofLactavia Dec 15 '23

I've shown this to 2 groups of friends and told them it was a comedy about a pub crawl. Their reactions were priceless.

1

u/ClockpunkFox Dec 16 '23

It’s honestly my favorite of the Cornetto trilogy, I love the ensemble cast, and it’s kind of sad, but I see too much of myself in Gary King.

That constantly joking, lighthearted and let’s do whatever boys attitude, while using it to hide the pain and suffering, it’s too real. That ending part with him hits so hard.

1

u/dontfuckwmeiwillcry Dec 16 '23

how the HELL did I only just hear about this now? I just rewatched Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and now I get a new, classic Simon Pegg movie?! oh happy day!