The best horror films also make us laugh. Any time you go see a horror film that has a moment where the audience screams, it is always followed with laughs. Many comedians have made horror/comedy films. Laurel and Hardy went into this territory with their film Oliver the Eighth.
In Oliver the Eighth, Oliver Hardy responds to a newspaper ad from a wealthy widow in search of a husband. Oliver visits her with Stan Laurel tagging along. It quickly becomes evident that the widow intends to marry and murder Oliver just like she did to all her previous husbands, who all were named Oliver. Stan and Ollie end up spending the night at the house but try to stay awake so that the widow doesn’t kill Ollie. Comedy and tension build as their attempts to stay awake either fail or injure the boys. Just as the widow is about to kill Ollie, he wakes up from the dream he was having all along.
This is one of the most memorable Laurel and Hardy shorts for me because Mae Busch is truly a scary woman. She shows up in several other Laurel and Hardy shorts but it was years before I saw any of those. When I first saw those other shorts, I didn’t like here very much because of this film. She plays a convincing homicidal maniac. I have finally warmed up to her in those other roles but this one features her at her most frightening.
