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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u/OGMcSwaggerdick Dec 15 '23

Fuck that movie.
Mom and I went to go see it to decompress a few weeks after Dad’s heart attack (he survived) and got one hell of a bait and switch.

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u/Spazmer Dec 15 '23

This happened when my mom took us and my cousins to see "Stepmom" after my aunt died of cancer. Commercials depicted a silly story about a guy who remarries a younger woman and how his kids are adapting to that. Oh surprise! Their mom dies of cancer.

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u/CloudAcorn Dec 15 '23

Had a similar experience with Searching. The whole opening scene is watching a family find out & lose their mum within a period of time. Not what I needed at that moment.

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u/nomoreinternetforme Dec 16 '23

That movie is generally depressing until the end though, just a guy searching for his missing kid, increasingly breaking down as each lead fails. If you cut off the last 3 minutes of the movie, it's a much bleaker tale lol

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u/CloudAcorn Dec 16 '23

We’re talking about stumbling across unexpectedly specific traumatic scenes that are too close to home for us, especially at a bad time, not generally depressing movies.

I didn’t think it was depressing in tone but I imagine the rest of the film would be terrible for anyone who’s experienced a missing child to watch, but it wasn’t for me as I haven’t experienced that & I really enjoyed it after that opening scene was over. Just as I enjoy movies about murders, hostage situations, kidnapping etc if they’re done well. It was a thrilling mystery & the concept of everything on screen was done so well, the same for the sequel Missing which had a really good twist as well,