Horror films are a movie genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus they may overlap with the fantasy and supernatural genre. Horrors frequently overlap with the thriller genre.
Horror films deal with the viewer's nightmares, hidden worst fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Although a good deal of it is about the supernatural, if some films contain a plot about morbidity, serial killers, a disease/virus outbreak and surrealism, they may be termed "horror".
- Body horror - In which the horror is principally derived from the graphic destruction or degeneration of the body. Other types of body horror include unnatural movements, or the anatomically incorrect placement of limbs to create 'monsters' out of human body parts. David Cronenberg is one of the notable directors of the genre. Some body horror films include The Invasion, The Fly, Rosemary's Baby, Eraserhead, The Thing, Re-Animator, The Human Centipede (First Sequence), Cabin Fever, Virus and Teeth.
- Comedy horror - Combines the elements of comedy and horror fiction. The comedy horror genre almost always inevitably crosses over with the black comedy genre. The short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving is cited as "the first great comedy-horror story".[30] Examples include The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Gremlins, Bad Taste, Beetlejuice, Arachnophobia, Scary Movie, Eight Legged Freaks, Shaun of the Dead and Slither.
- Gothic horror - Gothic horror is a type of story that contains elements of goth and horror. At times it may have romance that unfolds in the setting of a horror tale, usually suspenseful. One of the most earliest horror movies were of this sub-genre. Examples include universal horror films such as The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy. Modern gothic horrors include Sleepy Hollow, Interview with the Vampire, Underworld, The Wolfman, From Hell, Dorian Gray and Let Me In.
- Natural horror - A sub-genre of horror films "featuring nature running amok in the form of mutated beasts, carnivorous insects, and normally harmless animals or plants turned into cold-blooded killers."[31] This genre may sometimes overlap with the science fiction and action/adventure genre. Examples include The Birds, Jaws, Mimic, Deep Rising, Them!, The Swarm, Pet Sematary, Lake Placid, Primeval, Anaconda, Snakes on a Plane, The Cave and The Ruins.
- Psychological horror - Relies on characters' fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music, emotional instability and at times, the supernatural and ghosts, to build tension and further the plot. Examples include The Uninvited, Dark Water, Gothika, The Ring, The Exorcist, Session 9, Silent Hill, The Others, The Mothman Prophecies, The Blair Witch Project, 1408, The Shining, Stir of Echoes, The Innocents and The Sixth Sense.
- Science Fiction horror - Often revolves around subjects that include but are not limited to killer aliens, mad scientists, and/or experiments gone wrong. Examples include Alien, Pandorum, Event Horizon, Apollo 18, Pitch Black and It Came from Outer Space.
- Slasher film - A type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe. Slasher films may at times overlap with the crime, mystery and thriller genre. Examples of this genre include Black Christmas, Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Friday the 13th, Child's Play and A Nightmare on Elm Street.
- Splatter film - Often called torture porn, these films deliberately focus on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. Through the use of special effects and excessive blood and guts, they tend to display an overt interest in the vulnerability of the human body and the theatricality of its mutilation. Not all splatter films are slashers, and not all splatter films are horrors. Examples include Cannibal Holocaust, Piranha 3D, The Midnight Meat Train, The Final Destination, Saw, Guinea Pig series, Hostel, Borderland, Audition, Wolf Creek, Captivity, Martyrs, Inside, Antichrist, The Collector and A Serbian Film.
- Zombie film - Zombie films feature creatures who are usually portrayed as either reanimated corpses or mindless human beings. Distinct sub-genres have evolved, such as the "zombie comedy" or the "zombie apocalypse". Examples include Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, The Evil Dead[32], I Am Legend, Land of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Quarantine and The Return of the Living Dead.
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