Why are Bad things funny?

Originally I had a trailer clip to entice you, dear readers, but alas I am experiencing technical difficulties. So my question of the day, or rather the rest of the semester, is: Why is dark comedy so funny? In particular I want to look at the movie Very Bad Things.

Dark humor is full of all the things that should be terrifying to us as a society, yet we laugh at it. When my husband and I saw this movie he was rolling over the manner of the stripper/prostitute's death. We both laughed through the entire movie. It's mock serious tone did nothing to put us in a serious mood. The reprehensible acts that build through the story were hilarious. But if the same story had been presented on the nightly news would we have laughed? If these events had happened to people we know we would be crying. So why were we laughing so hard at this movie that we started to cry? This will be my research focus this semester. In addition I plan to compare the audience of this movie in 1998 to a much older audience, say the 50's. Would the Golden Era of movies have a place for this type of humor? Would it have earned that title, or been put in a horror bin? I do find a lot of early horror films funny.... But is that the movie or modern society? Where does the fine line of humor fall in such work and why? Tune in again for more on my research.