horror film

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Category: Arts & Culture

Key People:: Brian De Palma; Tod Browning; Jacques Tourneur; James Whale; William Castle

Related Topics:: film; vampire; zombie; horror story; werewolf

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horror film, motion picture calculated to cause intense repugnance, fear, or dread. Horror films may incorporate incidents of physical violence and psychological terror; they may be studies of deformed, disturbed, psychotic, or evil characters; stories of terrifying monsters or malevolent animals; or mystery thrillers that use atmosphere to build suspense. The genre often overlaps science-fiction films and film noir. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) In the earliest horror films, which were influenced by German Expressionist cinema, the effect of horror was usually created by means of a macabre atmosphere and theme; The Student of Prague (1913), an ...(100 of 454 words)

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