Why Do Comedians Make The Best Horror Directors?!

Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger have quickly become two of the most popular voices in horror today. Peele has made some of the most groundbreaking films in the horror genre with his directorial debut Get Out (2017), which is now dissected in film schools as a horror masterpiece. He shortly followed Get Out with the equally compelling Us (2019) and Nope (2022). 

Peele has become a leading voice in modern horror, making his own features while also helping other directors get their projects off the ground, such as the upcoming film Him directed by Justin Tipping and written by Zack Akers and Skip Bronkis. One film Peele attempted to get for his production company, Monkeypaw Productions, was Zach Cregger’s Weapons. Cregger made his horror debut with Barbarian in 2022, which was a breakout hit, a shocking thrill ride that was a joy to experience in theaters. As mentioned, Cregger followed Barbarian with his most recent feature film Weapons, in theaters now. With Weapons, Creggers showed once again that he is a new voice in horror to pay attention to. It's now clear to everyone why Peele was so eager to get this film under his production banner.

These two didn’t start out in a horror background, though. Peele and Cregger share a similar history, as they were both a part of sketch comedy groups before transitioning to horror, "Key and Peele’" and "Whitest Kids U Know", respectively. This may seem like a trivial fact, but it’s key to understanding their success in horror. 

Horror and comedy may appear to be polar opposite genres when looked at on the surface, but when digged into a bit more, it’s revealed they share a lot in common. Inherently, the writers and directors of a horror or comedy project are taking an exaggerated circumstance and attempting to get a reaction out of the audience, whether that is to scare them or get them to laugh. There also needs to be tight timing as that can make or break a joke or kill the suspense of a scare. The two bleed into each other so often that there is a whole subgenre that emerged because of them -- the horror-comedy genre, which plays into horror tropes and subverts them to result in the audience’s laughter. 

This skill of being able to get a reaction out of an audience and have good timing has helped Peele and Cregger, as well as other comedians-turned-horror directors such as David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, and Bill Hader. The reverse works too, as seen with Ari Aster. Aster broke out with Hereditary in 2018, which was a straight horror film. However, looking at his most recent work in Beau Is Afraid and Eddington, you see him lean more comedic than bone-chilling. This genre-hopping ability shows how skilled a filmmaker can be as well as their love for the art form.