Genres are like those big stretchy garbage bags (and NO!, I am not inferring genres, horror or otherwise, are garbage) into which all sorts of differently shaped objects can fit, creating awkward bulges without tearing.

Well, I have to say, you have a very good reason there. You're right, Se7en is about the detectives, not John Doe. Psycho, was about the women who stole a bank roll, but then was switched to being about Norman Bates the killer. So yea, I could see that as a very reasonable dividing line.

Since you're pretty good at this, what would you say about these movies? Horror or not, and why?

Evil Dead 2
Young Frankenstein
Shawn of the Dead
Pan's Labyrinth

Yes, very true! Like the genre of 'rock'.

I know you're not asking me but I'll give my plugged nickel's worth anyway. I'd say they're either horror or horrorish, with three of them fitting snugly into the subgenre of "gore-horror." Or somethin'.

This pretty much sums up the reality of genres better than I could....

Evil Dead 2: Healthy doses of slapstick comedy where blood and gore replace the custard pies, but still at the heart of it, its a horror movie. The first movie is more serious in tone (Campbell pretty much plays it straight in the first movie or at least is more down the line).

Shawn of the Dead: It's about as much 'horror-comedy' as any film can be. It's a pastiche of the genre but is still rooted in horror, more specifically a zombie apocolypse. The zombies are as real and dangerous as Dawn of the Dead and the situation is just as bleak.

Pan's Labyrinth: Fantasy Drama with a big slice of horror? :confused: I think the tone and atmosphere are what helps it sit inside the horror genre without too many raised eyebrows, but its a fantasy drama first for sure.

All this shit is totally subjective and open to opinion and I wouldnt argue with anyone that disagrees, thats just my take on it.... As for Young Frankenstein? It's one of my favourite comedies but I'll let you decide whether it qualifies as a horror movie;



I only said all that so I had an excuse to post that video...

Well said. I agree completely. Genres are helpful for us to categorize and group things, and for very brief description, but most things don't fall 100% into a single genre or subgenre. However, often there's a need to choose a single category -- for instance, in a video store -- so IMO there's nothing wrong with attempting to categorize things that way.

ED2 and Shaun of the Dead are pure horror if you take away the funny parts. Their stories are told from the prspective of skilled horror storytellers. The plots are horror, the production techniques are horror, and if you're not a fan of horror, you won't like them. Just because they have comedy mixed in doesn't take away the horror.

Pan's Labyrinth is harder to categorize, but I agree, it's rooted in fantasy, and the story is told as a drama. The violent scenes make it appealing to horror fans, and also we know del Toro to be a horror director and producer. A few scenes cross over into a more horror-like perspective, where the girl is exploring and doesn't know "what's around the corner." But if I were putting it on a shelf in the video store, I'd put it in fantasy.

Young Frankenstein does a stellar job of utilizing horror techniques in its parody, but I would root it in comedy. Much like the Scary Movie franchise, but perhaps with more respect to the horror genre. The setting and characters are well aligned with the movies it is lampooning. But, unlike ED2 and Shaun, I think if you take away the comedy, you don't have a movie.

All of those are horror movies, IMO, because they all contain both horror and the supernatural. A film can be horrifying without being a horror (e.g., Schindler's List) and supernatural without being a horror (e.g., Close Encounters of the Third Kind). But horror mixed with supernatural means you get a horror.

Well said. I would describe the movies pretty much they way you guys do. Good example for where you'd put it in a video store; which is the question I'm asking, but I would put Pan's Labyrinth in Fantasy and Young Frankenstein in Comedy.

But I would put Shawn of the Dead in Comedy, and Evil Dead 2 in Horror. My reason would be, I think ED2 was intended as a Horror movie, and Shawn was intended as a comedy, and I think it really comes across in the movie. I think more horror fans would like ED2 than comedy fans. And although some comedy fans may not like Shawn, I personally know a few non-horror fans who really liked Shawn, and they're comedy fans. There's a mainstream element in Shawn that's often absent from horror movies. Such as mainstream comedy actors, and the underlying bedrock sensibility is comedy, where one feels safe and in that way one never believes it's real. As an example, killing the first zombie: I think the establishment of the comedy is made so the audience is OK with laughing at the killing. Where that isn't the case in Dawn of the Dead and ED2. Oddly, in the last point I bring up about Shawn, I think that's absent in The Return of the Living Dead, which I would put on the horror shelf; although that would seem inconsistent to most.

Pan's Labyrinth, I would have to talk some horror fans into seeing it. "It's not like Disney's Labyrinth with Daivd Bowie. It's the director who did Mimic, accept it's way better!" LOL Pan is like a Grimm's tale. It's certainly dark with horror sensibilities.

I thought about that too -- the element of the supernatural. If we're not trying to define horror, but rather what 'video store category shelf' to place a movie, so to speak, then the element of horror and supernatural comes into play.

As a kid, it's the horror element that made me interested in seeing Young Frankenstein. Funny about defining 'supernatural'... is Frankenstein 1933 supernatural, or is it science fiction? I'd say it's technically science fiction, but the producers/distributors certainly billed as horror at the time of the film's release. The "Frankenstein monster" solidified it as horror over time. Just like many people commonly call the monster "Frankenstein", instead of the Doctor.

The film defines bringing a dead body back to life as science, without supernatural means, so to speak. But some would argue all things, such as zombies, ghosts, demons, angels, miracles, space aliens, etc, are all natural things that aren't currently well understood. It's a very fuzzy line between sci-fi and supernatural.

To sum it up, like you say (MM), Young Frankenstein has the elements of horror and supernatural, where Schindler's List and Close Encounters only has one or the other. That's a very logical approach. Not many would cite you for placing Young Frankenstein on the Horror shelf, except for the Mel Brooks fans. :)

I agree with most of what people have said in this thread. I actually remember learning about this in my Intro to Philosophy course. Horror movies are really an open-concept (A thing that has certain characteristics, except when it doesn't). Many people, on the other hand, try to treat it as a closed-concept (thing with a clear definition, such as a triangle). Personally, I group the War of the Worlds (1953), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Evil Dead II (1987), Jaws (1975), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Seven (1998), and Dawn of the Dead (1978) as a horror (with Pan's Labyrinth, Seven, Dawn of the Dead, Jaws, and Evil Dead II being clearly horror). With the understanding that horror is not really a clearly defined genre. As stated, genre grouping is often artificial with some films not fitting into a certain category or sometimes fitting into multiple simutaneoulsy. I think we generally understand what is a horror movie and what isn't. Casper simply is not a horror movie. Young Frankenstein, I don't consider horror, but understand the argument. Additionally, sometimes "scary movie" is used interchangeably with horror movie, but this is not always the case. Jaws or Psycho, for instance, are not particularly scary (unless you are in a motel or in the ocean), but are definitely horror. Thus, a horror movie is scary unless it's not. Ultimately, horror movies cannot be easily categorized or grouped because they are not a closed-concept.