2. • Supernatural: can include ghosts, monsters, dark forces, zombies, or pretty much any creepy thing
that can’t be found in the real world.
• Dark Fantasy: contains fantasy elements with a horror twist, or horror with a distinctly fantastical
setting, like Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.
• Sci-fi Horror: mash-up of science fiction and horror, usually where the sci-fic aspects (aliens,
robots, space travel) are used to precipitate the overriding horror. Like in the movie Alien.
• Psychological Horror: driven by characters’ fears and focused more on psychological dread than
on murder, mutilation, and gore. Could be supernatural, but is more often associated with those
twists where the protagonist turns out to be insane.
• Lovecraft an Horror: yeah, Lovecraft is so awesome he gets his own genre. Includes stories of a
distinct aesthetic involving either Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythology or similar ideas and situations:
i.e., ancient secrets, giant monsters/aliens in the bowels of the earth, and a profoundly
unsympathetic universe. Could also be called cosmic or atheistic horror.
• Gothic: involves psychological terror in historically romantic settings, usually including mysteries,
ghosts, castles, decay, madness, hereditary curses, and death. Pretty much dominated by Edgar
Allan Poe.
• Splatter punk/ Slasher: the horror extreme, with graphic and gory violence intended to gross you
out. Includes cinema’s torture porn category, in movies like Hostel.
3. •Satanic/Religious/Occult: horror derived from certain belief systems and the evil aspects that they
fight against. Usually involves demonic possessions, exorcisms, or explorations of the darker side of
pagan religions and the use of ”left hand” magic. The Exorcism is a stand-out example.
• Erotic Horror/Paranormal Romance: for some reason that I can’t fathom, sex and horror seem to
go hand in hand. There’s plenty of erotica involving horrifying situations/the supernatural, and
(unfortunately) paranormal romance (which I’m not even going to consider a genre of horror, because
it’s NOT) has gotten huge among the teenyboppers with the unfortunate success of drivel like
Twilight.
• Suspense/Thriller: does not involve any supernatural or otherworldly aspects, instead relying on real-
life situations to generate horror through serial killers, deadly situations, natural disasters, and
psychopaths. Good film examples are Se7en and Jaws (even though it’s pretty unrealistic that a shark
gets so hung up on eating people).
• Weird Fiction: a primarily historical term for fiction of the 1930s, it predates genre fiction and
blended the supernatural, mythical, and even scientific into stories that were ultimately strange,
uncanny, or unreal in nature. The term is popularized by Weird Tales magazine.
• Speculative Fiction: not a subgenre but an umbrella term encompassing science fiction, fantasy,
horror, superhero fiction, utopian/dystopian fiction, apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history literature.
For a story that doesn’t necessarily fit into one genre, or blends several (maybe a post-apocalyptic
horror/sci-fi piece with elves?), you can always just call it speculative fiction, since these genres often
overlap.
4. Codes and Conventions:
Dark settings – Horror movies usually use dark locations and setting,
typically at night time because both the audience and the protagonist
have limited visibility during this time. The darkness also has
connotations with death and evilness.
Low key lighting – The lighting is horror movies is normally well lit
however from an angle such as a low or high angle; this allows the
light to be concentrated in one particular area creating shadows which
build tension.
Music- orchestral music is so common in horror films is probably that
the open-endedness and great dynamic range of the genre allows the
composer to greatly vary his compositions to follow the events in a
film. Another reason could be that it is very neutral and appeals to a
wide audience, but perhaps the main reason is that powerful
orchestral music simply works very well when there is a need to
convey emotions and set a certain mood.
Groups of people- In a group of people the quite and mysterious
character is always the first to get killed however the dumb and stupid
characters always seem to survive till the very end.
Costume – The victims are usually dressed as ordinary as possible
which keeps the audience thinking that the events are real. Normally
also the victims wear lighter clothing because light colours have
connotations with vulnerability or innocence however the
