Subgenres

1931 onward · 53 films

Castles, candelabra and inherited guilt. The oldest room in the house.

1933 onward · 42 films

Something large is coming and the army will be no help. Usually the fault of a scientist.

1922 onward · 24 films

The most adaptable monster in the genre, and the only one that gets invited in.

1935 onward · 10 films

Body horror that arrives once a month. Ruined by CGI and never recovered.

1945 onward · 142 films

The threat is a person, or it is nobody, and you are not sure which.

1944 onward · 46 films

A building with an opinion. The purest test of whether a director can do restraint.

1973 onward · 43 films

Something else is using the body. Catholic in origin, now largely a genre of ritual.

1922 onward · 21 films

Rural, female, and usually persecuted by exactly the people the film sides against.

1963 to 1982 · 24 films

Black gloves, a straight razor and a plot that will not survive scrutiny. Italian, and gorgeous.

1974 onward · 61 films

A masked man, a holiday, and a group of teenagers with one survivor. The genre's most abused formula.

1968 onward · 34 films

Slow, numerous, and always about the survivors. Romero built the whole thing in 1968.

1972 to 1985 · 19 films

A short, indefensible Italian cycle with real animal killings in it. Crossover with Reel Scum.

1972 onward · 23 films

City people take a wrong turn. The countryside has been waiting.

1972 onward · 13 films

The genre's least defensible structure, and the one it argues about most. Crossover with Reel Scum.

1975 onward · 57 films

The threat is your own flesh. Canadian in origin, and largely one man's fault.

1963 onward · 47 films

The universe is indifferent and much larger than you. Lovecraft's, and mostly unfilmable.

1998 to 2010 · 15 films

Long black hair, wet floors, and a ghost with a grievance. Reset the whole genre in 1998.

1968 onward · 50 films

Isolated community, old belief, and an outsider who does not understand the calendar.

1980 onward · 25 films

The camera is a character and it will be dropped. Cheap, exhausted, occasionally perfect.

1956 onward · 17 films

The child is the threat. Reliably effective and reliably difficult to cast.

1971 onward · 51 films

No supernatural element, no killer with a motive. Just terrain, weather and time.

1963 onward · 15 films

Nature has had enough. Ran on pesticides in the 1970s and on climate now.

1999 onward · 97 films

Films made to be difficult. Some have an argument, some are an endurance test with a poster.