What is Horror
- Melissa Pepe
- Apr 18, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 22, 2025
The horror genre:
Horror books invoke a feeling to readers, that feeling emotion can manifest in may forms, usually fear or dread of the unknown. Something is off, something is wrong, something is looming in the darkest corner and the deepest shadow. Waiting for the turn of a page. Horror feeds off fears.
The horror genre is ripe with subgenres, for fears are many. The unexplained phenomena can take many shapes, form in ways that draw the reader further into the darkness. The subgenres can overlap, merge and horror plays well with other genres such as dark romance, thrillers, mysteries, fantasy, or inspired by true crime.
Body Horror: Something is horribly wrong with the human body, it is transforming by a force or it is an unknown sickness leading to a twisting grotesque visage. Body horror often is gory, an unsettling look at anatomical parts, a dissection of what we desire to be and what we cannot control. Body horror can be something changing us, inside out, infecting, warping. Body horror can be witnessing that transformation of those we love, warping them into a new shell, striping away the old self and displaying something new and hard to look at. Body horror can be dismemberment, bits and pieces of clearly human remains discarded or strew about, forced to witness hacking of and piece off.
Psychological Horror: The mind is a tapestry that can be easily torn. Are we crazy? Are we going mad? Are we trapped in our own minds? Is everyone else around us already crazed!? Questioning reality, what events are truth, is there any truth? Who is sane? What's it like to peak in the mind of a serial killer?
Monsters: Beast, creatures, ghouls, goblins, werewolves, vampires, the horror genre is full of bestiary real and imagined the list is endless. The monsters may be well defined or lurking in shadows. These monsters are often after blood and flesh, and humans are often on the menu, no longer safe at the top of the food chain. Even if the monster was once human, (vampire/werewolf) or looks human (alien/demon/other being?)- it clearly is not, for it's full of teeth and hunger. Creature features can not be ignored as part of the horror genre offerings.
Graphic Novels: Horror benefit from visual mediums. The graphic novel horror subgenre is ripe with horrific stories that make the reader question if they dare turn the next page, holding the dread. Horror novels are adapted into graphic novels and stand alone stories thrive as well, feeding terror with a mix of picture panels.
Comments