I remember a few years back, actually it was 20 years ago or more. There was this horror forum where I used to post links to my reviews. I only wrote them in Swedish back then. The traffic never reached the heights of the really big players, but what could I do? I was only one guy doing everything by myself, and the famous magazines had a whole staff of personnel, editors, webmasters and a whole lot of people all specializing in their own niche of movies. Of course, I also had other sites at the time, for music, books etc. I was pushing myself to the limit.

Anyway, on this forum I posted the links and it may not always have been what most people consider to be horror films. I didn’t care, I felt like everyone was as eclectic as me. That was apparently not true and from time to time my posts were challenged. “Is this really a horror movie?”, people said. Not many, but a few were real picky about it. The interesting thing is that with every objection to my posts, there was never anyone able to actually explain what horror, or horror films, really are. Is there a given set of rules to abide by? Nobody knew. Yet it was always argued that it was obvious. 

Is it possible?

The question is whether we can establish some rules that are objective and always true in every sense of the word. I don’t think it’s possible without writing several pages of numbered sections where they cross-reference each other in a complex pattern. If you ever dealt with statutory drafting you know what I mean. We need detailed definitions and we need paragraphs dealing with the exceptions to the rules established in them.

If we, on top of that, also look at the sub genres usually included under the horror umbrella, concepts like WiP, Nunsploitation, and Cannibal films, might not be as obvious as psychological terror or slashers. In short, if there’s lots of blood and/or terror it seems more natural. But on the other hand, Splatter films are usually collected under the Horror umbrella and the very nature of many of these is to create a comedic effect.

However, even if the general consensus of exaggerated make up effects or gore create a comedic effect, this is not always the case. Why is that? Films like Peter Jackson’s Braindead aka Dead Alive or Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky create a comedic feeling, whilst Hotel Inferno 2 comes across as gross and disgusting. It’s not necessarily scary but it has that aura surrounding it. All three of these movies are in essence ridiculous when it comes to guts, gore and blood, still they’re completely different. 

Soley gore?

But I would argue that even if all three movies are to be considered horror or at least fall under the horror umbrella – they are completely different. It’s not the gore in itself that makes a difference. It’s not the factor of disgustingness, or else Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life would be included among them. You know the scene towards the end where all the vomit comes into play. 

So we can establish that the gore etc. alone doesn’t make the difference. Hence we can use any amount of gore in both so called splatter, which falls under the horror umbrella and comedies that don’t even touch that spectrum. Does this mean we can also use gore/splatter/blood in other genres? Well… yes, I think the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan are among the toughest to experience. It’s very violent and very scary in some aspects.

On the other hand

We can also flip the argument 180 degrees and compare movies like Wrong Turn and The Human Centipede which I think most people would categorize as horror in some form, with the terrifying story of Apt Pupil or the infamous Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Are the latter ones horror? Are the Sharknado franchise horror films if you compare them to the Jaws series?

The point is that there are obviously unwritten conventions clarifying what a horror film really is. Although there is also a straight subjective aspect to consider. I don’t think two “experts” would consider using the same terminology 100% of the time. As an example I usually use whether or not there are supernatural elements to differentiate horror and thriller. My late wife’s opinion was that a thriller was a kind of a “cop-flick”. Do you understand the dilemma, and why it’s almost impossible to create definitions for this or that genre beforehand?