As well as Troma’s bizarre Cannes antics, there are a wealth of weird, wacky and very funny movies to choose from at this year’s Just for Laughs film fest, Comedia.

For those of us who adore well-endowed camp goddess Elvira (aka Cassandra Peterson), she’s back in another cheeky feature, Elvira’s Haunted Hills. This time, Elvira’s stuck in a castle in 1851, where she’s unsure if her host isn’t out to eat her up. The horror B-movies of Vincent Price served as inspiration for this film and, as usual, Elvira dishes up the laughs. Elvira will grace Montreal with a visit during Comedia.

Torrente 2: Mission in Marbella is one of those satiric films that not everyone fully understood. Centred by our anti-hero, a spoof of every vile, racist and misogynist movie cop imaginable, the film appealed to a massive Spanish moviegoing public, though it’s not entirely apparent how many actually caught on that his actions aren’t meant to be laudable. Oh well-Torrente 2 has become one of the highest-grossing movies in Spanish history. Sensitive types need not attend.

The How’s Your News team returns, after the success of their short film of the same name. Director Arthur Bradford continues to push boundaries here, in a very, very big way. He unleashes his crew of mentally deficient and disabled people, who assault unknowing passersby with various inane questions about things like fried chicken. It’s an odd film, for sure, one that might get some laughs but should leave people wondering why they find it so dang riotous. Bradford and some of his newsteam will be in town for screenings of the film.

Those who caught the fabulous standup act of Margaret Cho a few months back will recognize Notorious C.H.O.-it’s the filmed version of the routine she presented. Cho pokes fun at all things sexual, while revisiting her own self image and her entourage of odd characters. A sharp document of one of contemporary standup’s sharpest acts.

Plaster Caster profiles Cynthia Plaster Caster, the legendary artist whose work has been dismissed as trash for years. Cynthia’s oeuvre involves the casting of the penises of famous men, usually men who play in bands. The film works hard to shake Cynthia free of the mould of mere band slut or groupie and into the realm of legitimate artist. Not what I would call a knee slapper, but an interesting film nonetheless.

The subject of an alleged firestorm of controversy at Cannes, Nine Dead Gay Guys is Lab Ky Mo’s British comedy about two working-class blokes who end up getting involved with a group of older gay men that they’re hustling. No foe of the politically incorrect, I wasn’t the least bit offended by this film. But I didn’t find it very funny, either. The director will be in town for screenings of the film.

A satire of the teen melodrama is long overdue, and with the studios now pumping them out at a breakneck pace, one is undoubtedly direly needed. But Pumpkin, a premiere at Comedia that stars Christina Ricci, is mainly disappointing. It goes on far, far too long (this could easily have simply been an hour for TV) and feels downright pedantic by the final credit roll. John Waters said it better and bigger in a far funnier social-issue teen-movie spoof with Hairspray.

In other Comedia news, please note that the always-popular Eat My Shorts and Eat My Twisted Shorts, the anthologies of short comic films, return this year. Comedia also features retrospectives of Canuck TV comedy legends Wayne and Shuster and British screen deity Peter Sellers.

Comedia screens from today, July 11–July 22 at Cinéma du Parc, the Paramount and Cinémathèque québécoise