Horror films

Horror films is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include monsters, apocalyptic events, and religious or folk beliefs.

Horror films have existed since the early 20th century. Early inspirations predating film include folklore; the religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures; and the Gothic and horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From its origins in silent films and German Expressionism, horror became a codified genre only after the release of Dracula (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comedy horror, erotic horror, slasher films, splatter films, supernatural horror, and psychological horror. The genre has been produced worldwide, varying in content and style between regions. Horror is particularly prominent in the cinema of Japan, Korea, and Thailand, among other countries.

Despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success, influenced society, and generated popular culture icons.

Horror and terror

The distinction between horror and terror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic and horror fiction. Horror is the feeling of revulsion that usually follows a frightening sight, sound, or otherwise experience. By contrast, terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience.

Noël Carroll also defined terror as a combination of horror and revulsion.

Literary Gothic

The distinction between terror and horror was first characterized by the Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), horror being more related to being shocked or scared (being horrified) at an awful realization or a deeply unpleasant occurrence, while terror is more related to being anxious or fearful. Radcliffe considered that terror is characterized by “obscurity” or indeterminacy in its treatment of potentially horrible events, something which leads to the sublime. She says in an essay published posthumously in 1826, ‘On the Supernatural in Poetry’, that terror “expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life”. Horror, in contrast, “freezes and nearly annihilates them” with its unambiguous displays of atrocity. She goes on: “I apprehend that neither Shakespeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr Burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and where lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the dreader evil.”

According to Devendra Varma in The Gothic Flame (1966):

The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.

Horror fiction

Horror is also a genre of film and fiction that relies on horrifying images or situations to tell stories and prompt reactions or jump scares to put their audiences on edge. In these films the moment of horrifying revelation is usually preceded by a terrifying build up, often using the medium of scary music.

In his non-fiction book Danse Macabre, Stephen King stressed how horror tales normally chart the outbreak of madness/the terrible within an everyday setting.^[6] He also elaborated on the twin themes of terror and horror, adding a third element which he referred to as “revulsion”. He describes terror as “the finest element” of the three, and the one he strives hardest to maintain in his own writing. Citing many examples, he defines “terror” as the suspenseful moment in horror before the actual monster is revealed. “Horror,” King writes, is that moment at which one sees the creature/aberration that causes the terror or suspense, a “shock value”. King finally compares “revulsion” with the gag-reflex, a bottom-level, cheap gimmick which he admits he often resorts to in his own fiction if necessary, confessing.

Horror, helplessness and trauma

The paradox of pleasure experienced through horror films/books can be explained partly as stemming from relief from real-life horror in the experience of horror in play, partly as a safe way to return in adult life to the paralysing feelings of infantile helplessness.

Helplessness is also a factor in the overwhelming experience of real horror in psychological trauma. Playing at re-experiencing the trauma may be a helpful way of overcoming it.

Sub-genres of horror film

Horror is a malleable genre, and it can often be altered to accommodate other genres such as science fiction, which makes some films difficult to categorize.

Lovecraftian horror

Named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), this sub-genre of horror films include themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries.

Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction, and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries,which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre.The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.