Horror Movie Genres: Complete List
A horrific change of the body, be that through mutation, disfiguration, or any other disturbing transformation. Differs from gore due to the existential dread that comes with losing yourself.
“A Cure for Wellness” - 2016
“Videodrome” - 1983
“Uzumaki” - 2000
“Black Swan” - 2010
A specific type of body horror that includes the melting of flesh and bone.
“The Blob” - 1988
“The Evil Dead” - 1981
“Gremlins” - 1984
“The Beyond” - 1981
“Cloverfield” - 2008
“Grave Encounters” - 2011
“The Blair Witch Project” - 1999
“REC” - 2007
Horror that plays with your mind.
“His House” - 2020
“10 Cloverfield Lane” - 2016
“Cube” - 1997
“Silence of the Lambs” - 1991
Where you’re most vulnerable.
“Us” - 2019
“Don’t Breathe” - 2016
“Hush” - 2016
“The Purge” - 2013
Surrounding a killer stalking and murdering a group of people.
“Halloween” - 1978
“A Nightmare on Elm Street” - 1984
“Friday the 13th” - 1980
“Fear Street Part One: 1994″ - 2021
The perpetrators of an injustice getting their dues.
“May” - 2002
“I Spit on Your Grave” - 2010
“American Mary” - 2012
“Ma” - 2019
What it says on the tin. Gore was very big in the ‘00s.
“Martyrs” - 2008
“Saw” - 2004
“Hostel” - 2005
“Audition” - 1999
Surrounding the darker side of “folk” - anything anti-modern and regionalised. Includes cults, lore, and sometimes ancient magic.
“In the Earth” - 2021
“Blood on Satan’s Claw” - 1971
“The Lighthouse” - 2019
“A Field in England” - 2013
“The Blair Witch Project” - 1999
“The VVitch” - 2015
“Suspiria” - 2018
“Gretel and Hansel” - 2020
“The Ritual” - 2017
“Midsommar” - 2019
“Wicker Man” - 1973
“Kill List” - 2011
Horror surrounding the consumption of human flesh.
“Raw” - 2016
“Green Inferno” - 2013
“Cannibal Holocaust” - 1980
“The Hills Have Eyes” - 1977
GRINDHOUSE (AKA EXPLOITATION HORROR)
Often cheaply made, seen as trashy by some, uses sensationalist violence to draw in an audience.
“House of Whipcord” - 1974
“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” - 1974
“Frightmare” - 1974
“Death Proof” - 2007
Heavily stylised Italian suspense/horror movies that feature shocking scenes of gore.
“Suspiria” - 1977
“A Lizard in Woman’s Skin” - 1971
“Deep Red” - 1975
“Blood and Black Lace” - 1964
“Let the Right One In” - 2008
“30 Days of Night” - 2007
“Thirst” - 2009
“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” - 2014
Gothic themes such as old manors, vampires, and dreary weather.
“Crimson Peak” - 2015
“The Others” - 2001
“Dracula” - 1958
“The Whip and the Body” - 1963
Unexplainable phenomena. Can include ghosts, but doesn’t have to.
“The Exorcist” - 1973
“It Follows” - 2014
“The Omen” - 1976
“The Babadook” - 2014
The one does need to have ghosts.
“Ringu” - 1998
“Veronica” - 2017
“The Conjuring” - 2013
“The Grudge” 2004
Remember when everyone was really into the idea of a zombie apocalypse? What changed…
“Night of the Living Dead” - 1968
“28 Days Later” - 2002
“Little Monsters” - 2019
“Planet Terror” - 2007
I count this as anything with an animal threatening your life, to differentiate it from a monster movie - killer bees instead of Godzilla, a massive bear instead of Frankenstein’s monster.
“Crawl” - 2019
“Jaws” - 1975
“The Birds” - 1963
“Lake Placid” - 1999
Usually made for a lower budget, independently from a larger studio.
“The Void” - 2016
“Creep” - 2014
“V/H/S” - 2012
“Resolution” - 2012
A film that has one story on the surface, but is a metaphor for another.
“Hereditary” - 2018
“The Platform” - 2019
“District 9″ - 2009
“They Live” - 1988
A mixture of science-fiction and horror.
“Event Horizon” - 1997
“The Fly” - 1986
“Alien” - 1979
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” - 1978
Surrounding the unexplainable phenomena of deep space/alternate dimensions. Notoriously hard to represent visually.
“The Endless” - 2017
“The Thing” - 1982
“Annihilation” - 2018
“in the Mouth of Madness” 1994
The scary deep sea. Or other body of water.
“The Abyss” 1989
“Underwater” 2020
“Sea Fever” - 2019
“Sphere” - 1998
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