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Horror is perhaps the most iconic of cinematic genres - its images appear everywhere and have lit cinema screens since their invention. Yet if you do not know your Saws and Se7ens from your Slashers, here is a brief rundown of some of the main genres and types.
Physical mutation is the name of the game here as characters start changing, affected by alien diseases or worse. Perhaps the ickiest and creepiest sub-genre in many respects, though director David Cronenberg turned it into a real art form exploring ideas including disease, rage and the power of film itself. Just a shame the genre also includes the likes of The Human Centipede, which has none of the intelligence.
Recommendations: Eraserhead, Videodrome, The Fly.
Practically nothing’s scarier than hyper-intelligent youth in revolt, be it possession or anything else. Perverted innocence has been a common thread in horror and is all too often terrifying.
Recommendations: The Innocents, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, Let the Right One In.
Who says that blood and violence cannot be funny? It presents a great opportunity for slapstick - often the more gore the merrier! Witty one-liners and extreme physicality play alongside knowing references to genres even while you are scared out of your wits, or alternatively simply grossed by the sheer gore on screen.
Recommendations: An American Werewolf in London, Evil Dead I & II, Braindead.
After Blair Witch and then Paranormal Activity became the most profitable films in history, this genre’s suffered serious over-exploitation and now no one thinks it remotely real - the gag is up. On the other hand, when it started with Cannibal Holocaust, the director found himself charged with the murder of his crew unfortunately in the mistaken belief he had killed on camera. What happens to the animals is actually real, ruins it, and makes an otherwise excellent film unwatchable.
Recommendations: Blair Witch Project, Rec
We’ve always been fascinated by killers on screen, whether we look at those trying to catch them or follow our murderer. When done right, they look alien, remote, and we watch with great discomfort as we absorb their disturbing obsessions.
Recommendations: Peeping Tom, Manhunter, Man Bites Dog, Se7en.
Starting with films like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas, these films traditionally involve the slaughter of teens and twenty-somethings until only the purest female survives. Occasional variations have led to more interesting ideas like dream killing in A Nightmare On Elm Street, but essentially, it has been done to death and then remade.
Recommendations: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street parts 1 &7.
The most recent genre on the list is also often the most unpleasant and controversial, largely because the brutal torture of individuals for 90 minutes isn’t that scary or fun. That said, outside the mainstream with a little intelligence and proper characters it gets even more unpleasant but actually interesting. David Slade went and proved you do not actually need any gore for it to work wonderfully just the right script and cast.
Recommendations: Hard Candy, Martyrs.
Thanks to George Romero, there are all too many Zombie movies with a new one appearing every week. It is pretty much the same regurgitated post apocalyptic mixture endlessly groaning across celluloid so like its protagonists it will just never die.
Recommendations: Romero’s original Of the Dead, 28 Days Later.
For torture porn I don't know how you could miss out the Saw and Final Destination franchises.
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