Where do you draw the line between genres? Are there clear-cut differences? Or do styles meld together at the seams? What defines a horror film, and how is different from a thriller? Are movies like Seven and The Others one, the other, or one and the same?
It’s a sort of amalgamation between the options — there is overlap.
Horror. Noun. (1) an overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear: to shrink back from a mutilated corpse in horror. (2) anything that causes such a feeling: killing, looting, and other horrors of war.
Dictionary.com
Horror evokes a specific response: fear. Fear of monsters. Fear of the dark. Fear of the unknown. Fear is the endgame, and as long as that is achieved, it’s a horror movie (or has horror elements, as in movies like Pan’s Labyrinth where the direct intent is not necessarily to scare). It doesn’t matter what the scare is, but that the scare is obvious and coming straight at you.
Thriller. Noun. (1) A person or thing that thrills. (2) an exciting, suspenseful play or story, especially a mystery story.
Dictionary.com
Thrillers… also evoke fear. Here, though, it’s coming at you sideways. A viewer might think to themselves “I know this is scary because…”A viewer is thinking and not necessarily experiencing. We have the same tension and discomfort of horror, but it’s clinical and able to be processed during the main action. Psychological movies like What Lies Beneath are often identified as thrillers for this reason.
A horror movie and a thriller are almost the same, but there’s one BIG difference distinguishing them from each other: critics’ reviews. It’s almost a running gag now that horror movies don’t win Oscars — probably because of the cheesiness, gore, and all-around subversiveness. Simply changing the genre from “horror” to “thriller” transformed The Silence of the Lambs from a cannibal serial killer movie to one of brilliant detective work with smart psychological undertones. Oscar territory. IMDB lists Get Out as a horror, mystery, and thriller, bringing it out of the very real fears of African-Americans into “woke” white arms.
Presenting horror films as more-acceptable thrillers (or even completely different genres, like comedies) isn’t new. For some reason, making horror movies not horror makes them more respectable. We’ve explained in our Audience article how horror isn’t just for snot-nosed teenage boys, causing a river of destruction and debauchery in their wake. Seeing a horror film won’t make you one either. In Horror Noire, Jordan Peele explains how people came to identify with suave villains like Blacula and Hannibal Lecter instead of the sniveling, stupid protagonists. Enjoying a horror film won’t make you a monster. Perhaps the problem lies with those thoughts though; if I watch a movie about a chainsaw maniac, I’m no better than him. People seem to think that watching a horror movie will bring out a hidden evil they cannot control. What a crazy idea!
Even the words are a disservice. Labeling something as “horror” evokes fear just by using the word. Horror sounds harsh and violent.“Thriller,” conversely, sounds smart and playful. Think of this: you’re at a theme park and come across two rides. The first is a “House of Horrors,” boasting gruesome artifacts of torture and enough blood to make your boyfriend scream. It sounds barbaric — why would anyone want to experience that? The other ride is a “Thrillcoaster,” a ride that excites and sends chills down your spine. The screams here are fun! Little do we know the “House of Horrors” is a rinky-dink dark ride with rubber animatronics that are broken more than they are working, while the “Thrillcoaster” is a living death trap with g-forces that could stop your heart. Where thrillers offer a chance at excitement, horror takes you immediately to depraved darkness. Your mind is your worst enemy, and while a lot of horror movies do have scenes that aren’t for the faint of heart, they’re still a highly technical and emotional art, worthy of recognition.
Labeling something as a thriller doesn’t remove the horror, but adds an unnecessary sweetness to it. I suppose that’s fine if you’re looking to expand your audience, but it could very easily go the other way. Take A Serbian Film, a highly controversial film about a pornstar who, to put it simply, is forced into a spree of snuff and incest. Pure horror territory. A Serbian Film, though, is labelled as a “horror-thriller” or even “horror, mystery, thriller” for its allegorical interpretation of the European film industry and modern politically correct culture fueled by foreign money. In my humble opinion, there is no possible way to guess all that by seeing the film, and I’m sure that showing this to my parents, colleagues, or non-horror friends labelled as a “thriller,” would lose me a lot of credibility. Not only is changing the name of a category a misrepresentation of the genre, it’s potentially damaging to the audience and movie-makers themselves.
So when we ask the question “What is the difference between horror movie and a thriller?” we find that the answer is “viewpoint.” Critics views, audience views, filmmakers views. The reality is that even though two ideas are essentially the same, they could feel completely different based perception — one’s morals, prior knowledge, status, and preferences. It’s like the thought that someone can draw a 6 or 9 on the ground and have it look like the opposite number to another person (meaning there’s no right answer because it could be both depending on how you look at it). But in the end, there is a definite answer because someone intended to draw either a 6 or a 9, not both. There’s no real line between horror movies and thrillers, because all thrillers can fit into the horror category, making the base product a horror film. Styles can meld together and perception will always be a factor, but in the end, there is only horror — bloody fantastic!
