Sub Genres in the Horror Genre

8/12/2019 Sub Genres in the Horror Genre

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Some Sub-Genres within

the Horror Genre:



Sub Genre: Psychological Psychological horror aims to create discomfort by exposing common or universal

psychological and emotional vulnerabilities and fears, such as the shadowy parts of

the human psyche that most people repress or deny referred to in Jungian

psychology as the archetypal shadow characteristics: suspicion, distrust, self-doubt

and paranoia of others, themselves and the world. Thus, elements of psychological

horror focus on mental conflict. These become important as the characters face

perverse situations, often involving the supernatural, immorality and conspiracies.

While other horror media emphasize fantastical situations such as attacks by

monsters, psychological horror tends to keep the monsters hidden and to involvesituations more grounded in artistic realism. The sub genre is used to cause a

discomforting feeling within the audience because of the realism. Examples of

psychological horror films are Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’ and

Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick’s ‘The Blair Witch Project’.



Sub Genre: SlasherThe slasher film in some cases includes conventions of both the thriller and action

genre. Conventionally, the plot follows a psychopathic killer with a motif,sometimes realistic, other times not, stalking and killing a sequence of victims

usually in a graphically violent manner. The killer most often uses a cutting tool

such as an; knife, axe or hammer to kill their victims. These objects are seen as

iconography and codes that relate to the slasher sub genre. The sub genre has its

own characteristics which set it apart from other sub genres in the horror genre.

Many people often consider Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ as the first slasher, but infact the

earliest film relating to ‘slasher-type’ conventions dates to the 1930’s – ‘Thirteen Women’ directed by George Archainbaud.



Sub Genre: SupernaturalSupernatural horror films explore what is ‘other’ and ‘unknown’ to

humanity, that cannot be explained. In the past years, the supernatural subgenre has become associated with the psychological as the plots are often

presented as ‘real stories’. They include plots following the afterlife, the

devil and demonic possession, conventionally including ghosts and

poltergeists and religious references that cannot be proven. The

supernatural horror sub genre is the most commonly used and popular sub

genre around and among audiences in the present day, with mainstreamfeatures such as Oren Peli’s ‘Paranormal Activity’, Takashi Shimizu’s ‘The

Grudge’, and Daniel Stamm’s ‘The Last Exorcism’.



Sub genre: VampireVampire films have been a gothic staple since the era of silent films.The

most popular cinematic adaptation of vampire fiction has been from Bram

Stoker's Dracula, with over 170 versions to date. As folklore vampires

are defined in their need to feed on blood and on their manipulative

nature; a theme held common through the many adaptations. Although

vampires are generally associated with the horror and sometimes

splatter genre, vampire films may also fall into the drama, action, science

fiction, romance, comedy or fantasy genres, among others. For example

the very popular ‘Twilight’ franchise unconventionally attracted younger

audiences with its plot heavily based around teenage romance.



Sub Genre: WerewolfWerewolf fiction denotes the portrayal of werewolves and other shape

shifting man/woman-beasts with key codes of the genre including fullmoons. Werewolf literature includes folklore, legend, saga, fairy tales,

Gothic and Horror fiction, fantasy fiction and poetry. Such stories may be

supernatural, symbolic or allegorical. However, werewolf fiction is an

exceptionally diverse genre with ancient folkloric roots and manifold

modern re-interpretations. Two of the most popular werewolf films

include Joe Dante’s ‘The Howling’ and John Landis’ ‘An American

Werewolf in London’, both released in 1981.



Sub Genre: Zombie

As fictional undead creatures, zombies are regularly encountered in horrorand fantasy themed works. They are typically depicted as mindless,

reanimated corpses with a hunger for human flesh, and particularly for

human brains in some depictions. Many consider George A. Romero's film

Night of the Living Dead to be the progenitor of these creatures. The

popularity of zombies in movies has led to them sometimes having been

taken out of their usual element of horror and thrown into other genres,for example the comedy film Shaun of the Dead. The "zombie apocalypse"

concept, in which the civilized world is brought low by a global zombie

infestation, has become a staple of modern popular art.

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Sub Genres in the Horror Genre