Analyzing the Horror Genre

Many people define horror by its subjects. We all think of creatures like Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and the wolfman as monsters in the horror genre.But we also know that horror covers more than just these monsters. We could all make long lists of the kind of creatures we identify with horror. The minute we would start to make such a list we would also realize that not all monsters are alike and that not all horror deals with monsters. The subject approach

is not the clearest way to define this genre.

"The tension we feel when a character goes into the attic, down into the basement, or just into the abandoned house is partially a result of suspense. We don’t know what is going to happen. But that suspense is intensified by our knowledge of the genre. We know that characters involved in the world of horror always meet something awful when they go where they shouldn’t. Part of the tension is created because they are doing something we know is going to get them in trouble."

"Many works concentrate on the conflict between good and evil. Works about the fantastic may deal with the search for forbidden knowledge that appears in much horror literature. Such quest are used as a way of examining our attitude toward knowledge."