About the Genre

HORROR SUB-GENRES:

Child in Peril: involving the abduction and/or persecution of a child.

Comic Horror: horror stories that either spoof horror conventions or that mix the gore with dark humor.

Creepy Kids: horror tale in which children--often under the influence of dark forces--begin to turn against the adults.

Dark Fantasy: a horror story with supernatural and fantasy elements.

Dark Mystery/Noir: inspired by hardboiled detective tales, set in an urban underworld of crime and moral ambiguity.

Erotic Vampire: a horror tale making the newly trendy link between sexuality and vampires, but with more emphasis on graphic description and violence.

Fabulist: derived from "fable," an ancient tradition in which objects, animals or forces of nature are anthropomorphized in order to deliver a moral lesson.

Gothic: a traditional form depicting the encroachment of the Middle Ages upon the 18th century Enlightenment, filled with images of decay and ruin, and episodes of imprisonment and persecution.

Hauntings: a classic form centering on possession by ghosts, demons or poltergeists, particularly of some sort of structure.

Historical: horror tales set in a specific and recognizable period of history.

Magical Realism: a genre inspired by Latin-American authors, in which extraordinary forces or creatures pop into otherwise normal, real-life settings.

Psychological: a story based on the disturbed human psyche, often exploring insane, altered realities and featuring a human monster with horrific, but not supernatural, aspects.

Quiet Horror: subtly written horror that uses atmosphere and mood, rather than graphic description, to create fear and suspense.

Religious: horror that makes use of religious icons and mythology, especially the angels and demons derived from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost.

Science-Fiction Horror: SF with a darker, more violent twist, often revolving around alien invasions, mad scientists, or experiments gone wrong.

Splatter: a fairly new, extreme style of horror that cuts right to the gore.

Supernatural Menace: a horror tale in which the rules of normal existence don't apply, often featuring ghosts, demons, vampires and werewolves.

Technology: stories featuring technology that has run amok, venturing increasingly into the expanding domain of computers, cyberspace, and genetic engineering.

Weird Tales: inspired by the magazine of the same name, a more traditional form featuring strange and uncanny events (Twilight Zone).

Young Adult: horror aimed at a teen market, often with heroes the same age, or slightly older than, the reader.

Zombie: tales featuring dead people who return to commit mayhem on the living.

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SOURCE: "Sub-Genre Descriptions" by Michael J. Vaughn, Writer's Digest,
March 18, 2008