Forums Horror Movie Talk
How Do You Define Horror?

This has been bothering me for quite awhile. I would say nce 2000. Because up till that time you knew what belonged in the horror section. I know there are hundreds of sub categories (monster,slasher,ghost,ect.), but it still falls under the heading of horror. But lately I have had trouble labeling my movies. I'm sure I'm not the first and guys who were in their 30's back in the 70's may have had this problem too. Take the movie Battle LA, if this movie had came out in 1950 it would be billed as a horror/scifi movie. Just like It Came From Outer Space,The Blob,Robot Monster are all movies where an alien life form comes to Earth and does battle. They were horrific ideas(then) hence they fall into the horror category. But now it is accepted as just scifi or scifi/action. I'm cool with that. But the more movies that come out,the harder I find to label them.

here's something recent, I Saw The Devil. It's a badass movie with a few great kills,but does just killing someone make it a horror movie? Netflix says so,me I have no clue I just like it. So Do you need blood and death to have a horror movie or just scariness? Its a weird thing,what constitutes horror. I guess my question is,what is horror to you what does a movie need to actually cross the line from say bloody action movie to horror movie? I'm all eyes on this one. Let me know what the consensus is.

Here's the definition to the word HORROR

1.an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear: to shrink back from a mutilated corpse in horror

2.centered upon or depicting terrifying or macabre events