Frenetic sounds, dark skies, unexpected jump scares, a struggle for control, geysers of blood flooding like a fountain, and sex appeal are some of the standard tropes of a horror film today. Horror films as a whole get characterized by the more recent violent and gory movies. Hideous Deformity, foggy woods, violent history, dark poetry, psychological disease, and the philosophical qualities of good and evil are used to characterize the horror genre from the 1900’s to the 1970’s. People have forgotten academy award winners like “Jaws” or psychological horror movies like “Silence of the Lambs”. "Psycho" is another horror film that even the most jaded film buffs call a masterpiece. Some may question the horror status of those films, but they are indeed horror films.
The perceived dilution of the horror genre starts with the definition. I contend that horror movies have become misrepresented. The word horror itself is quite vague. “Requiem for a Dream”, a film about drug addiction, fits the definition of horror. The psychological aspects alone make it comparable to “A Clockwork Orange” or “American Psycho”. Award academies can call them thrillers, but that does not take away the fact that many thrillers are horror films. All the murder mystery films from Dario Argento such as “Tenebrae” and his cult classic “Suspiria” are horror films, despite their similarities to a thriller film.
According to dictionary.com, horror is defined as “an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear horror”. However, thriller means “a person or thing that thrills or an exciting mystery story thriller" (again, according to dictionary.com). People classify whodunit films like “The House on Haunted Hill” and “The Bat” as horror films.
Some critics consider “Silence of the Lambs” a thriller film despite the threat of a real cannibal, as “Silence of the Lambs” shares qualities with Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. The film has blood and gore but with a more psychological edge. Frankenstein and Dracula are considered icons of the horror genre, yet those films from the 1930’s have no blood or gore. Frankenstein has a lot of science fiction in it, yet no one calls it a science fiction film. That is why the horror genre must be properly defined.
The best analogy to define the horror genre is the tree in 'Adam and Eve'. This analogy is not concerned with whether someone is religious or not; the choice is ours to make, and we may have a different idea of what is truly horrible and what is not. The tree in Adam and Eve represents good and evil. The tree also represents their choice. In that story, Adam makes the wrong decision, and that parallels the critics that pan exploitative horror films that rely on shock value.
Regardless, the horror genre is a “tree of meaning”. The horror genre blurs the line and makes us reconsider the meaning of good and evil like the tree; “the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition for all that our civilization represses or oppresses" (as stated by Horror, The Film Reader). The horror genre is the representation of the uncertainty in our definitions of good and evil. I believe that some critics reject these films because of the content and its tendency to blur the line. At the same time, critics give horror movies a different genre when that horror movie gets recognized during the awards season.
A horror film can be gory (A Nightmare on Elm Street), atmospheric (The Wolf Man), psychological (Silence of the Lambs), religious (Dracula Has Risen From The Grave), strange (Eraserhead or Donnie Darko), scientific (Alien), exploitative (1978 I Spit on Your Grave), symbolic (1954 Gojira), a representation of reality (1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), or even political (1978 Dawn of the Dead).
The history of the horror genre remains unchanged, and all of these films are a part of it. In the end, a horror film is anything that challenges our meanings of good and evil: “a tree of meaning”, like Adam and Eve before it.
