Horror Film - Sub-genres

Sub-genres

• Action Horror - A subgenre combining the intrusion of an evil force, event, or supernatural personage of horror movies with the gunfights and frenetic chases of the action genre. Themes or elements often prevalent in typical action-horror films include gore, demons, vicious animals, vampires and, most commonly, zombies. This category also fuses the fantasy genre. Examples include Resident Evil, Ghost Rider, Planet Terror, Undead, Doomsday, Underworld, Constantine, Priest, Dawn of the Dead, Deep Rising, From Dusk till Dawn, Blade, Legion and End of Days.

• Body horror – In which the horror is principally derived from the graphic destruction or degeneration of the body. Other types of body horror include unnatural movements, or the anatomically incorrect placement of limbs to create 'monsters' out of human body parts. David Cronenberg is one of the notable directors of the genre. Some body horror films include Altered States, The Invasion, The Fly, Rosemary's Baby, Eraserhead, The Thing, Re-Animator, Hellraiser, Videodrome, Cabin Fever, Virus and Teeth.

• Comedy horror – Combines the elements of comedy and horror fiction. The comedy horror genre almost always inevitably crosses over with the black comedy genre. The short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving is cited as "the first great comedy-horror story". Examples include An American Werewolf in London, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Gremlins, Bad Taste, Braindead, Beetlejuice, Arachnophobia, Terror Firmer, Eight Legged Freaks, Shaun of the Dead, Evil Dead II, Tucker & Dale vs Evil, and Slither.

• Gothic horror – Gothic horror is a type of story that contains elements of goth and horror. At times it may have romance that unfolds in the setting of a horror tale, usually suspenseful. Some of the earliest horror movies were of this sub-genre. Examples include universal horror films such as The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy. Modern gothic horrors include Sleepy Hollow, Interview with the Vampire, Underworld, The Wolfman, From Hell, Dorian Gray, Let Me In and The Woman in Black.

• Natural horror – A sub-genre of horror films "featuring nature running amok in the form of mutated beasts, carnivorous insects, and normally harmless animals or plants turned into cold-blooded killers." This genre may sometimes overlap with the science fiction and action/adventure genre. Examples include The Birds, Black Sheep, Jaws, Mimic, Deep Rising, Them!, The Swarm, Pet Sematary, Lake Placid, Primeval, Anaconda, Snakes on a Plane, The Cave, Piranha 3D and The Ruins.

• Psychological horror – Relies on characters' fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music, emotional instability and at times, the supernatural and ghosts, to build tension and further the plot. Examples include The Uninvited, Dark Water, Gothika, The Ring, The Grudge, The Exorcist, Session 9, Silent Hill, The Others, The Mothman Prophecies, The Blair Witch Project, 1408, The Shining, Stir of Echoes, The Innocents, Frailty, The Changeling, and The Sixth Sense.

• Science Fiction horror – Often revolves around subjects that include but are not limited to killer aliens, mad scientists, and/or experiments gone wrong. Examples include Alien, Pandorum, The Fly, Event Horizon, Apollo 18, Doom, Pitch Black, The Mist, and It Came from Outer Space.

• Slasher film – Often revolves around a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, mainly with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe. Slasher films may at times overlap with the crime, mystery and thriller genre, and they are not all of the horror genre. Examples of this genre include Psycho, Black Christmas, Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Prom Night, Scream, Pieces, Hatchet, Friday the 13th, Child's Play, Candyman, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

• Splatter film – These films deliberately focus on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. Through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, they tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the theatricality of its mutilation. Not all splatter films are slashers, and not all splatter films are horrors. Examples include Cannibal Holocaust, Piranha 3D, Blood Feast, Demons, Saw, Guinea Pig series, Hostel, Cannibal Ferox, Martyrs, Hobo with a Shotgun, Inside, Antichrist, The Collector, and The Midnight Meat Train.

• Zombie film – Zombie films feature creatures who are usually portrayed as either reanimated corpses or mindless human beings. Distinct sub-genres have evolved, such as the "zombie comedy" or the "zombie apocalypse". Examples include,Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, The Evil Dead, I Am Legend, Dead Snow, Land of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Quarantine and The Return of the Living Dead.