Horror film

Horror 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, slashers and the supernatural

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.

The book The Film Experience: An Introduction (2021) defines the horror film as a genre with origins in Gothic literature that seeks to frighten the viewer. The authors highlight the fundamental elements of the horror film as "characters with physical, psychological, or spiritual deformities"; "narratives built on suspense, surprise, and shock"; and "visual compositions that move between the dread of not seeing and the horror of seeing".

Alternatively, The Dictionary of Film Studies (2012) defines the horror film as representing "disturbing and dark subject matter, seeking to elicit responses of fear, terror, disgust, shock, suspense, and (of course) horror from their viewers." In his chapter "The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s" from the book Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (2002), film critic Robin Wood declared that the commonality between horror films is that “normality is threatened by the monster.” This idea was further expanded on by Noël Carroll in his book The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart (1990); he noted that "repulsion must be pleasurable, as evidenced by the genre's popularity."

Before the release of Dracula (1931), as historian Gary D. Rhodes explained, the ideas and terminology of horror films did not yet exist as a codified genre, although critics had used the term horror to describe films in reviews prior to Dracula's release. Horror was a term used with a variety of meanings. In 1913, the magazine Moving Picture World defined horrors as showcasing "striped convicts, murderous Indians, grinning 'black-handers', homicidal drunkards". Some titles directly suggested horror, such as The Hand of Horror (1914), a melodrama about a thief who steals from his own sister. During the silent era, the term horror was used to describe everything from battle scenes in war films to stories of drug addiction. Rhodes concluded that the term horror film (or horror movie) was not used in early cinema.

The mystery film genre was then in vogue, and early information commonly promoted Dracula as a mystery film, despite the novel, the play, and the film relying on the supernatural. Kim Newman discussed the genre in British Film Institute's book Companion to Horror, where he noted that horror films in the 1930s were easy to identify, but after that decade, “the more blurred distinctions become, and horror becomes less like a discrete genre than an effect which can be deployed within any number of narrative settings or narrative patterns”. In the 1940s, the horror film was viewed in different terms. Critic Siegfried Kracauer included The Lost Weekend among films described as “terror films,” along with Shadow of a Doubt (1943), The Dark Corner (1946), Gaslight (1944), Shock (1946), The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Stranger (1946), and Spellbound (1945). Two years earlier, the New York Times described a new cycle of “horror” productions included Gaslight, The Woman in the Window (1944), Dark Waters (1944), Laura (1944), and Phantom Lady (1944). Mark Jancovich wrote in the book The Shifting Definitions of Genre: Essays on Labeling Films, Television Shows and Media (2008) that horror was virtually synonymous with mystery as a generic term, not being limited to films concerned with the strange, eerie, and uncanny.

Various writings on genre from Altman, Lawrence Alloway (Violent America: The Movies 1946-1964 (1971)) and Peter Hutchings (Approaches to Popular Film (1995)) implied that it is easier to view films as cycles rather than genres, suggesting that viewing the slasher film as a cycle would locate it in terms of several factors: the film industry's economy and production, the personnel involved in particular eras, and the manner of film marketing, distribution, and exhibition. In an essay, Mark Jancovich declared that "there is no simple 'collective belief' as to what constitutes the horror genre" among fans and critics of the genre. Jancovich found that disagreements existed between audiences who wanted to distinguish themselves. Such disagreement included fans of other genres who may view a film such as Alien (1979) as belonging to science fiction, as well as horror fans dismissing it as inauthentic for either genre. Further debates exist among genre fans having personal definitions of “true” horror films: some fans embrace cult figures such as Freddy Krueger of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, while other fans disassociate themselves from characters and series and focus instead on genre auteur directors such as Dario Argento, while still other fans would deem Argento's films too mainstream, preferring more underground films. Andrew Tudor wrote in his book Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie that "Genre is what we collectively believe it to be."