Horror Reference · 37 entries
Types of Horror: Subgenres, Monsters and Terms
What kind of fear is this?
Gothic, cosmic, folk, splatterpunk, body horror — the genre has more rooms than most readers know. Look up any subgenre, monster or storytelling device, find out what it actually means in a book, and see which titles do it best.
37 Terms
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Horror is not one genre but a family of them. A gothic novel, a cosmic-horror novella and a splatterpunk paperback frighten a reader in completely different ways — through place, through scale, and through the body. This reference explains each one and points at the shelf that holds it.
Start with the kind of fear
What are you looking for?
Subgenres
Gothic, cosmic, folk, psychological, splatterpunk and the rest.
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Monsters & Figures
Wendigo, banshee, revenant, changeling, doppelganger and the rest.
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Concepts & Motifs
The uncanny, possession, eldritch, the Cthulhu Mythos.
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How Horror Works
Final girl, unreliable narrator, found footage, the penny dreadful.
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Most looked up
What readers are looking up
Common questions
Frequently asked
How many types of horror are there?
There is no fixed number — publishers and readers recognise somewhere between a dozen and thirty, and the boundaries move. The ones that matter to a reader choosing a book are the handful that describe HOW a story frightens: gothic through place and inheritance, cosmic through scale, psychological through doubt, body horror through the flesh, folk horror through landscape and ritual, splatterpunk through explicit violence.
What is the difference between horror and dark fantasy?
Horror is built to frighten; dark fantasy is built to immerse in a grim world where frightening things happen. A dark fantasy novel can end in triumph without breaking its promise. A horror novel that reassures you has broken its own.
What is the difference between gothic horror and cosmic horror?
Scale, and who is at fault. Gothic horror is intimate and inherited — a house, a family, a secret that will not stay buried. Cosmic horror is indifferent and vast: nothing is hunting you personally, which is precisely the problem.
Where should a new horror reader start?
Start from the kind of fear you already enjoy rather than from a canon list. If you like dread that builds, try psychological or gothic; if you like scale and strangeness, cosmic; if you like folklore and landscape, folk horror. Each entry here links straight to that shelf.
Find the shelf that matches the fear
Every term here points at the books that do it best.
