Article by Dan Budnik

A dog walks into a bar.
The Bartender says, "How was your day?"
The dog says, "Ruff."

They don't make comedy like that anymore. There was a time when people laughed to laugh. Laughed because it felt nice. In a horror movie, where the atmosphere could be adversely tense, the "Comic Relief" was the audience's outlet. Someone who faced terror with slapstick goofballery (Costello's meetings with the monsters) or with cool wisecracks (Bob Hope). The viewer could be scared and then giggle some of it off. As the years progressed, many horror films shed the Comic Relief element, specifically because of what its purpose was. Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are without the nut-nut release valves other horror films took advantage of. Every once in a while the comic behavior appeared in the most inopportune places (The Last House on the Left). In the late 70's-early 80's, when the slasher formula solidified, Comic Relief was very take-it-or-leave-it.

The slashers are generally pretty misanthropic beasts. Their sole purpose is the killing of people in numerous and sensational fashions. Frankly, I love them to pieces. How does levity survive in a genre of films that is all about the slaughter of every cast member? Frankly, it doesn't. But, I think it's worth taking a closer look at why. I'm here today to discuss two very different examples of comic relief in slashers and their functions within each. The first film, House of Death (aka Death Screams) from 1981, is an example of, in theory, how Comic Relief (referred to as Relief from here on) should work. The second film, Night Screams from 1987, is an attempt that goes tragically wrong.

One of the joys of Relief is that when it works, it is effortless. A joy. When it fails, there is nothing but sad silence. Let me introduce you to the King of Silence: Diddle from David Nelson's House of Death.
The plot is simple. In a North Carolina town, during a summer-ending carnival, someone begins killing people. In the last half hour, the killer focuses on a group of "kids”. One of them is Diddle whom we first see at the carnival in his charming cutoff jeans with unkempt curly hair and potbelly. At first he seems like the "odd man out” in the group. The other two guys are less goony and have girlfriends. He is, however, a 35-year-old college student like everyone else.

The first notion of his true worth comes during the "Test Your Strength” scene. It's that carnival game where you swing the mallet and try to ring the bell. During Diddle's turn, he does a John Wayne impersonation, a Paul Lynde impersonation and imitations of an evangelist and a random fey guy. Throw in some innuendo directed towards the unattached blonde in the group and a hernia joke when he lifts the mallet and you have a 12-course meal of hilarity with a side of goofy bread.

Everything Diddle does is greeted with loud and boisterous laughter from anyone within earshot. This is Relief at its pushiest. Does he yell "Gangbang” or "Sex Maniacs” in a joking manner? Check. Does he make a joke about the quality of the carnival's hamburger meat? You bet your lost soul. Are his last words in life gags even when he is all alone? There is no prize given for saying "You bet your ass!” but there is an enormous sense of civic pride.

I don't think I've ever not laughed so hard as when I watched everyone laugh at Diddle. His graveyard chant of "Owa Tana Siam!” sends laughter rolling along the corpses. Even piss drunk, he's funny. (Although, he sobers up in the blink of an eye. Super Relief!)

The thing about Relief like Diddle is that it's so excessive and unfunny (for the viewer) that it becomes fascinating. He impersonates, imitates, quips and never stops with the gaggage but none of it is funny. Possibly the filmmakers know this because he is the second one bumped off during the final killing spree. His friends are planning on scaring him as he is using a graveyard outhouse. Instead, they find his body hung like a stuck pig inside. (Diddle did get a chance to make a constipation joke before dying. There is some consolation.)

Could he have died because of the attempted scare? If he had been left alone to make Number 2, would he have lived? Some sort of cosmic force was affected when non-Relief attempted to pull a joke on him and he could no longer exist. It's worth thinking about.

Diddle is the most extreme example of the "God, this Comic Relief guy is funny! Look how much everyone is laughing!” that I know of. The harder they push, the more awkward and sad it becomes. However, there is a sadder form of this sort of comedy. The man joking into the void in our second film is Russell, Relief from Allen Plone's 1987 slasher Night Screams. The question is: How depressing is your film when the Relief isn't funny and your cast (almost universally) refuses to laugh at anything he does?

The story here is simple. A bunch of high school kids (Insert age-of-actors joke here) have a big party at a house in the country. Amidst a net full of red herrings, they are all killed and not even the hip-shaking Sweetheart Dancers can raise spirits.

Russell is pudgy and insists upon dressing like a lame Michael Jackson from the "Beat It” days. The first time we see him is in the guy's locker room fetchingly attired in T-shirt and blue underpants. He is given a wegi, right cheek exposed for America's pleasure. Even at this point he's clearly the Relief except he is not afforded an ounce of respect. Diddle didn't get the girl but his friends were his friends. Russell is treated as an annoyance by almost everyone. Oh, he also loves to listen to music on his Walkman and dance in an embarrassing fashion wherever he can. Most of the characters seem to acknowledge that he's always joking but, here's the rub, no one (apart from one couple, DB & Lisa) ever laughs at anything he says. Again, he just seems to bug everybody.

Russell is more low-key than Diddle. His jokes are drier and sometimes indescribable as actual comedy. The constant referring to the fact that he is funny (including Russell mentioning his own joking around) is akin to a sitcom laugh track pointing out that something is a joke. It's strangely disconcerting in a film about killing people. All of his friends are gruesomely dying around him and the filmmakers are so affected that they can't do anything with the Relief but say he's funny when he does nothing humorous. Yuks, not fancy words, speak volumes.

I find it fascinating that in this misanthropic genre even the Relief can be DOA. Joking into a place where there is nothing like humor or where humor isn't made to amuse. Swinging a comedy bat through some serious molasses.

Oh, Russell. "Lemons! We don't need no stinkin' lemons!” Not funny. "About as much fun as shock therapy.” I've got the gun. "…” I couldn't even come up with a third line he said that is a joke of some sort. (He doesn't even let loose with an amusing spoonerism.) I hope you brought the bullets.

(A side note: Unlike Diddle, Russell expresses no interest in sex with anyone. He actually pooh-poohs people who are talking about sex at a bar scene. What strange behavior. Asexual Comic Relief. Sad.)

"Laugh, dammit! We're being slaughtered here!” No dice, jack. Maybe it's the quality of Russell's friends that make his goofing so worthless. I remember a party or two in high school with folks I didn't really know where the "funny kid” was anything but. He was sad in a tragic, special way mainly because his lame friends thought he was a veritable freakin' hoot.

Why is Russell even written into the party when no one there cares a fig for him? Remember the physical wegi I mentioned, well, they give him mental wegis all night. Only DB & Lisa treat him with any sort of respect and that mostly seems like they're amusing him. Trying to make sure he's not left out. Pity when they die.

The film doesn't even give him a decent death. He is strangled with some sort of pole/ cane. It takes ten seconds to completely kill him. Russell, we hardly knew ye but at least you died the way you lived: dancing to bad music like a complete & total asshead. Will anyone mourn your loss? Are you and Diddle in Heaven now making people alternately laugh and not-laugh?

"All your jokes were lost in the blackness. The void swallows all.”

Failed Comic Relief is a sad and tragic element in the already downbeat genre of slashers. Relief seems to hold no place in these films. The unfunny, lugubrious antics of the dearly departed Diddle & Russell amplify this. When you joke into the void, the void jokes back at you.