Horror films are
movies that strive to elicit the emotions of fear, horror and terror
from viewers. Their plots frequently involve themes of death, the
supernatural or mental illness. Many horror movies also include a
central villain.
Horror films have been dismissed as violent, low budget B movies and
exploitation films. Nonetheless, all the major studios and many
respected directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski,
Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, William Friedkin, Sam Raimi, Richard
Donner, and Francis Ford Coppola have made forays into the genre.
Serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of genre
theory and the auteur theory. Some horror films incorporate elements of
other genres such as science fiction, fantasy, mockumentary, black
comedy, and thrillers.
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