HORROR, is a genre of film, whereby playing on common fears and emotional instabilities allows the director to frighten and scare his/her audience demographic.
You'd be surprised how many horror sub-genres there are out there...
Supernatural - Usually includes some kind of force that is beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. Most common themes in supernatural horror movies include ghosts, monsters and dark forces.
Dark fantasy - Dark fantasy adds a horror feel to a fantasy film. By this, I mean fantasy that have more of a gloomy atmosphere to them.
Sci-fi Horror - Elements of sci-fi, usually aliens/ robots/ etc. mixed with horror. To do this, the movies usually have some kind of theme where there is going to be a takeover, like in the movie Alien.
Psychological Horror - Relies on character fears and instabilities and uses various tricks to lure the audience in such as including every day objects to make the audience feel as though they can relate to the film. This sub-genre aims to create a sense of discomfort in it's audiences psychologically and emotionally.
Gothic Horror - Psychological terror in historically romantic settings. They typically include mysteries, castles, vampires decay and death.
Splatter film - Graphic use of gore and violence through special effects and excessive blood/ blood loss.
Satanic/ Religious/ Occult - Horror that's come from the belief of the evil that religion fights against. Usually there is inclusion of some sort of possession or exorcism etc.
Erotic Horror/ Paranormal romance - also known as Dark Erotica describes films which include sexual imagery blended with horror overtones.
Suspense/ Thriller - A film that doesn't necessarily scare you, but definately can make you jump. It has an exciting plot and can involve crime or spies.
Speculative - Usually a term used to describe a film that doesn't really fit into just one genre. It is more of an umbrella term than a subgenre, and includes a blend of science fiction, fantasy, horror, superhero fiction, apocalyptic fiction and alternative history literature
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Body Horror - Horror generated from the degeneration or deconstruction of the human body. Usually involve scenes of a very graphic nature.
Comedy Horror - Simply a combination of the comedy genere, and horror. Well known of this genre are the Scary Movie films.
Natural Horror - Films that feature nature running amok in the form of usually mutalated beasts, carnivorous insects or harmless animals or plants turned into cold-blooded killers.
Slasher film - Normally a slasher film would involve a lot of violence associated with a psychopathic killer that chooses one 'signature wepon' to kill all of his victims.
Zombie film - Live corpses that feed of the living. Most of the time realted to some sort of disease, illness, or infection spreading worldwide.
Action Horror - Combines the intrusion of evil, an event or the supernatural in other horror films, with the guns, explosions, and high-speed chases in action films.
