Subgenres

There are so many different sub genres of horror films that it would be very hard to try and list every sing one, instead I have made a list of the most popular and ones I think are the most important. It is important to see that many films are not limited to one sub genre and many of them can overlap.

Slasher Horror - Slasher horror films are often very violent. This type of horror often uses a lot of suspense and build up. Most often this type of horror film will revolve around a serial killer who kills their victims in a particular way such as. 

An example of this kind of film is A Nightmare on Elms Street which focuses a killer named Freddy Krueger who kills his victims in their dreams while they are sleeping.

Body Horror - This can refer to how horror is generated from the deconstruction or degeneration of the human body. This can be things such as monsters being created out of human body parts, or unnatural movements to create fear. Other examples can include disease, decay, parasitims, mutation, or mutilation.
An example of this kind of film is The Fly. This is about a scientist who tries to create  a teleportation device but it goes wrong when he accidentally enters the chamber with a fly. He is then diformed with the head and left arm of a fly.


Gothic Horror - Gothic horror contains both features of Gothic and horror. They often include features like dungeons, castles and magic and the supernatural. These are are what some of the earliest horror films were such as Frankenstein and The Mummy.
One of the best examples of this sub genre is Dracula. Dracula is about a male vampire who lives in a very Gothic castle on an island. There are many re-imaginings of this but the thing that always stays the same is its Gothic setting and feel.


 Psychological horror - This type of horror relies much on its characters and their feelings such as belief, guilt, emotional instability and most importantly fear. It sometimes also uses the supernatural. 
A great example of this is The Shining. The Shining is about a man and his family who go look after a hotel while it is winter, they have very little communication with elements of the supernatural which drives the man to become unstable and violent.


Science fiction horror - This kind of horror deals with the paranormal but often in a different way to ghosts and mad scientists. This genre has often got themes of space, aliens and the fear of technology.
An example of this is Alien. Alien is about a crew on a spaceship who receive a distress call on a planet and go and investigate, When they return they find that another life form has also entered the ship and the film revolves around them trying to survive.


Other horror sub genres include:
-Zombie
-Comedy horror
-Action horror

This is a very good image which shows even more types of sub genres and puts them into a kind of order with larger genres to categorise them into.