So what exactly constitutes a Movie as "Horror?" Let's debate and define.

[kp404]

We have about 10 days until the horror movie list thread starts, so I figured we should exammine various theories of what a horror movie is and agree on a definition.

I'll be posting a few quotes from around the net on the definition of a horror movie and other posters voice your opinion before Oct. 1st. Remember, these are VARIOUS definitions from around the internet:

From: http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-is-horror-movie.html

I tend to be protective of the term "horror". To me, it represents a very specific type of movie, and in this age of inclusiveness, I feel people have tagged many films as "horror" in order to justify the genre. They want to say, "Hey look! Look at all the "horror" films that have won Oscars! We're legit! We're not the grade-B low-budget degenerate shlockfest that people think we are. Please like us..."

Well EFF THAT! Horror does not need justification or legitimacy. It's just fine as it is, thank you very much - in all its bloody, subversive, thought-provoking glory.

Therefore, I think a little clarification is in order. A comprehensive definition of what a horror film is, so these constant mis-classifications can stop. If a term like "horror film" is used incorrectly, eventually it loses its meaning and has no value anymore.

Once we have a solid definition we can use that as a filter to pass a bunch of movies through it and see how it stands up under scrutiny.

I'll take the first stab - here's my definition. A horror movie has to have the following elements:

- it has to have an element of the supernatural (witches, ghosts, demons, alternate realities, etc)
or
- it has to have a monster (some creature that does not actually exist)
AND
- its primary aim has to be to elicit fear, horror, disgust or suspense.

This means that many of the most famous movies that you see on those best horror films lists, ARE NOT EVEN HORROR FILMS!

Ok, let's go back to the films already mentioned and pass them through my filter.

Black Swan

has nothing to do with the supernatural and has no monsters. It teases the audience with weird things going on - dopplegangers and a young woman sprouting feathers, etc. - but it is evident from the beginning of the movie that the lead character (whose point of view the film is seen) is by every piece of evidence, BATshyt CRAZY! Let's see,we got bulemia, cutting, boundry issues with ma, a little OCD perhaps, some good ol' sexual repression and a huge whopping dose of psychosis and schizophrenia.

- Jaws

is a tremendous example of an action thriller and created the summer blockbuster, but I hate to break the news to you, GREAT WHITE SHARKS ACTUALLY EXIST. And they actually kill people.

- Psycho

, Silence of The Lambs

and yes... even Texas Chainsaw Massacre

are all based ON A REAL-LIFE PSYCHOTIC PERSON NAMED ED GEIN. These are all incredibly great, monumentally important films, but none of them are true horror films, my friends.

I think people want to classify these films as horror in order to make themselves feel safer - "Oh, those chainsaw wielding, lunatic cannibals are just monsters! Thank goodness they don't exist in real life." Well I've got news for you folks, human beings are capable of unimaginable acts of cruelty and depravity. Just ask the Jews or the Chinese what they went through during WWII. This stuff actually happens. This is no boogeyman tale to keep kids in line. Ed Gein actually existed, created a lamp shade out of a face, wore a woman's "suit" from real flesh. And he's not the only one.

Look, when I worked at a bookstore back in the 90's, I knew all aboutSilence of the Lambs

and Red Dragon

. I loved those books and recommended them to customers constantly. You wanna know under what section they were kept? Take a guess...

In the MYSTERY section, with all the other detective stories about murderers and child molesters and serial killers. Wanna know why? Because THEY AREN'T HORROR BOOKS! And neither was American Psycho

for that matter - that was in the general fiction section.

Psycho

started this whole line of suspense/thriller movies that eventually morphed into slasher films and then into... well, I'll discuss that a little later. Here's some more of these films that aren't horror movies:

- Last House on the Left

- a disturbing thriller based on an Ingmar Bergman classic, The Virgin Spring

. You wouldn't call The Virgin Spring a horror film, would you?

- Friday the 13th

- a classic slasher film. This movie and all the carbon copy slashers that came after it almost killed true horror films with their lack of imagination, cliched stories and endless teenage body counts.

- Seven

- a psychological thriller/detective film. One of my favorite movies of all-time.

- Scream

- a self-referential slasher/thriller. Two kids, Billy and Stu are the killer. Nothing supernatural here folks.

 

[kp404]

Difference between a horror movie and a thriller

From: http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_a_thriller_movie_and_a_horror_movie

A thriller is more interested in suspense, putting you "on the edge of your seat" or in plain terms, making you nervous for the fate of the characters. A horror movie wants to make you fear for your personal safety, to make you afraid that what happened to the characters may happen to you even after you've left the theater.
As a good horror movie often contains a great deal of suspense and as a good thriller can be pretty scary in spots it's more down to the intentions of the film maker and the subject matter of the film. Hitchcock is regarded as a suspense director but his films Psycho and The Birds are more correctly classified as horror films because they deal with horrific subject matter and their intention is to terrify, not make you nervous about the fate of the on-screen characters. Hitchcock's film North By Northwest has a terrifically suspenseful ending but it is not particularly horrific in that it is not specifically designed to scare you into thinking you may fall off Washington's nose on your next visit to Mount Rushmore.
Since the 80's film makers who somehow feel making a horror film is beneath them have often described their films as "thrillers" when they are actually horror films further blurring the difference between the two styles.

 

[King Crimson]

I think that guy is kind of limiting in his definition of horror. To say that something is not horror because it doesn't have monsters is kind of silly. Some of the scariest movies I've ever seen had no monsters, but sick ass people. You tell me what's scarier than man.

To answer the question, I think anything that attempts to elicit fear or terror is horror. Whether it hits or misses its mark is another story.

 

[MN Fats]

Texas chainsaw massacre IS a horror movie. ...I can't take anything the man said serious after he claimed it wasn't.

 

[MartyMcFly]

Yeah the idea that you have to have s supernatural element or a monster to be horror is too limited. I feel that horror is anything where it attempts to scare you. Whether it's through jump scares, a monster, based on real life events, etc. Halloween the strangers and black Christmas are horror movies no question about it. Jaws is a horror movie in my mind because the shark is out to kill and has no conscience. It only wants to eat and devour. It has no reason to it and you can't argue or bargain with it.

 

[god=nature=we'reFUCKED]

I heard a Coen Brothers interview where they were listing key rules to horror.

1. Innocent must suffer
2. You have to spill blood to be a man
3. The dead will rise (I'm assuming they meant metaphorically)

I think there was two more, I'm looking through youtube right now to find the interview.

Had me like

 

[kp404]

I heard a Coen Brothers interview where they were listing key rules to horror.

1. Innocent must suffer
2. You have to spill blood to be a man
3. The dead will rise (I'm assuming they meant metaphorically)

I think there was two more, I'm looking through youtube right now to find the interview.

Had me like

Thread is getting interesting :saboflabbysick:

Let's get some more definitions here...let's debate!

 

[kp404]

Check this definition out:

http://www.horror-movies.ca/what-makes-a-horror-movie/

 

[SlowPaceThrillah]

Jaws always confuses me because it's got the cinematics of a horror film but at the same time there's no mystery over what the threat is and the fact that the lead characters' actively chase it upsets the normal dynamic for me.

Serial killer films too, not slashers, but procedural films like Seven, Zodiac, Memories of Murder. They rarely have the camera work or tense set pieces of horror but at the same time all those films had me more than the 95% of the usual horror movies I've seen.

 

[kp404]

Jaws always confuses me because it's got the cinematics of a horror film but at the same time there's no mystery over what the threat is and the fact that the lead characters' actively chase it upsets the normal dynamic for me.

Serial killer films too, not slashers, but procedural films like Seven, Zodiac, Memories of Murder. They rarely have the camera work or tense set pieces of horror but at the same time all those films had me more than the 95% of the usual horror movies I've seen.

And that's the issue here: Does a horror movie make you feel differently than a movie categorized as a "thriller" or "suspense" and if not, are thrillers and suspense movies also horror movies?

As for Jaws, I never considered it a horror movie. Its an action thriller imo.

 

[SlowPaceThrillah]

Yeah the idea that you have to have s supernatural element or a monster to be horror is too limited. I feel that horror is anything where it attempts to scare you. Whether it's through jump scares, a monster, based on real life events, etc. Halloween the strangers and black Christmas are horror movies no question about it. Jaws is a horror movie in my mind because the shark is out to kill and has no conscience. It only wants to eat and devour. It has no reason to it and you can't argue or bargain with it.

That's a great point, any character/ monster you could talk down or reason with would invalidate all of it's power, can't have Jason Vorhee's chasing someone for them to fall to their knees and go "My dad's got money " so Jason can reply "I'm listening "

 

[MartyMcFly]

That's a great point, any character/ monster you could talk down or reason with would invalidate all of it's power, can't have Jason Vorhee's chasing someone for them to fall to their knees and go "My dad's got money " so Jason can reply "I'm listening "

Lol. It's about inevitability. I think the best horror flicks are about that and jaws along with a lot of my favorites are all about this thing that you cannot stop and will get you its just a matter of when. Ultimately you have to go to great lengths to stop it even sacrifice if need be

 

[kp404]

Lol. It's about inevitability. I think the best horror flicks are about that and jaws along with a lot of my favorites are all about this thing that you cannot stop and will get you its just a matter of when. Ultimately you have to go to great lengths to stop it even sacrifice if need be

But Jaws to me was always a controlled threat. yea he could kill, but only in water and he himself was an animal that could be killed as well. I never saw him as this inevitable threat that could get me. I would put that on leatherface after the OG Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How the movie ends basically told me that he was going to keep killing and he would not be stopped...Same with the OG Halloween, The Shining, etc.

That's why I don't necessarily agree with the theory that horror must be supernatural, but I think the supernatural is essential in how we define horror since its technically makes humans the most vulnerable: its places the terror outside of our control as humans, which is the most terrifying thing: an entity or act we have absolutely no control over at all...

 

[The Goodz]

I think of thrillers (Se7en, Last House on the Left, Zodiac, Psycho, Shining) are movies that have that "that can actually happen in real life" factor

Whereas horror movies (Jaws, Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers, etc) are fake and just up to the imagination

 

[HHR]

I listened to the Battleship Pretension podcast episode just this week to prepare for this inevitable discussion. It's a pretty good ep, though a little ragged.

BUT, the best point the make in the difference between suspense and horror is the release of tension. Horror movies build tension up, toward a direct release...you're just scared/uncomfortable (or at least that's the goal).

Suspense films generally build up tension and there is more of a payoff when that tension is released.


IMO, one major factor that would sort of limit what can be considered horror is any whodunit element. If there is a mystery that is being actively investigated by someone other than those immediately involved in the "incident", then it's a suspense/thriller movie. In these movies, the viewer is generally more concerned, or least partially concerned, with following the plot and the mystery. MOST horror films don't have the same kind of "procedural" feel. There are some that have similar auras about them, like Rosemary's Baby as an example, when we start to unravel what the hell is actually happening. But it's not done in the same style as something like Silence Of The Lambs.

Of course, no rule or guide will really hold up perfectly, but the debate is definitely interesting.