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duckprintspress
A guest post by Rascal Hartley.
A lot of things masquerade as horror, and horror masquerades as a lot of things (I am looking at you, Blood Meridian). It’s a fascinating genre, but it can be intimidating to try to step into for the first time. If you’re wondering what even is horror, don’t worry: the definition is wonderfully, deeply vague.
Horror as a genre is defined as a story told that terrifies, disturbs, or disgusts.
This may leave you wondering whether X thing is technically horror (like literally any war movie), but the answer is probably no. Horror relies a lot on authorial intention.
The best way to think of it is like labels: you can use whichever ones you want, but just because you qualify for one doesn’t mean you have to be that.
That said, you’re always free to your own opinion on whether you think something is horror (Willy Wonka, for example). ((Come on, like seven kids die. There’s a creepy recitation in a dark tunnel. The songs were REHEARSED.))
Anyway.
There are two classic divisions of horror as a genre: paranormal and psychological.
- Paranormal horror is any horror that involves things like ghosts, monsters, and superhuman abilities.
- Psychological horror is basically everything else.
Obviously, this leaves a lot of room. The Exorcist is tonally extremely different from Dracula, after all.
That’s why horror leans into more niche categories, that in turn often have even more niche categories. I can’t list them all, as there are as many as there are horror books, and some of the definitions are even wobbly or disagreed upon themselves, but I can give a brief overview for the newcomers, the curious, and the bored. So let’s get started.
Note: These categories are broad generalizations. For example, a slasher and Bigfoot are two different sorts of books that would have their own labels, but I’ve grouped them here as monsters to avoid writing a whole novella on genre niches. Forgive me.
Horror niches
Gothic horror
These are your classics, things like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Island of Dr. Moreau (it is horror, fight me). They’re characterized by their dark drama and depth of description. A book doesn’t have to be old to be Gothic.
Book recs: Dracula by who else; The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson; The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Folk horror
Folk horror is horror that is deeply regional, usually relying on folklore. Anything specific to one region of the world can be folk horror, though it is usually older traditions. (I don’t think I’d consider a haunted fax machine that’s only made in Beijing to be folk horror. But hey, write it and send it my way anyway.) Things like Southern Gothic or historical horror can fall in this category (though not always).
Book recs: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones; Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
Genre-spanning horror
So few things are only ever one specific thing, horror included. Genre-spanning horror is horror that spans genres (wow), like scihorror, horror comedy, horromance, dark fantasy, queer horror, religious horror, dystopian horror, and on and on. The Island of Dr. Moreau also fits here (remember that).
Book recs: Shake Out the Ghosts by Al Hess; Hello, Sunshine by Keezy Young
Body horror
Body horror is horror that focuses on grotesqueness in a body. This can be gore, mutation, or anything that accomplishes that goal. It can be narrowed into things like medical horror, splatterpunk (gore-focused horror), and extreme horror (horror that’s transgressive for transgression’s sake). The line between splatterpunk and extreme horror can vary by person, so tread with care.
Book recs: Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White; Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Weird horror
Weird horror is… horror that is weird. It defies convention. It’s something you haven’t seen done before. It makes you go “woah.” It’s pretty up to individual interpretation, too, so while these two recs may not be weird horror to you (somehow…), they’re weird horror to me <3
Book recs: The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall; Crom Cruach by Valkyrie Loughcrewe
Monster horror
This is the big one. Horror with a monster. Something under the bed, something peeking in the window, something jumping out from the bushes… We know it well. Or, well, we know of it. Whether the monster is a cosmic baddie or a ghost or a serial killer or something unexplained, it’s a monster all the same.
Book recs: The Flesh of the Sea by Lor Gislason and Shelley Lavigne; Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Extra-niche honorable mentions
Like I said, I can’t get into everything, but there are a few cool niches I want to mention anyway: analog and found footage horror, digital horror, liminal horror, and ecohorror (among a million others).
Book recs: Mister Magic by Kiersten White; Welcome Home (website)
In summary
The most important thing to remember here is that very few books are only one genre. The Island of Dr. Moreau fit into multiple categories. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is also monster horror and body horror (and has some content warnings, so do check those before reading). A lot of these are also queer horror, or scihorror, or horromance. The point is: horror is a catch-all term for writing that makes you feel a certain way. What it does beyond that, well, the infinite void of space is the limit. Enjoy your stay in the genre. It’s happy to have you.
I missed a million things, so why not come shout at me about it in the comments? Or even better, shout at me and then rec a horror book in that category. My TBR isn’t a mile long yet. Fix that.
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Date: 2026-09-24 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-09-24 02:40 pm (UTC)