Horror Genres
The Horror Codex taxonomy organizes horror cinema by the nature of its central threat — what the monster is, where the fear comes from, and how the film makes you feel it. Adapted from Bruce Kawin's framework in Horror and the Horror Film.
Godzilla Minus One (2023)Horror's oldest figure given form. Vampires, zombies, aliens, kaiju, and creatures beyond classification — the monster externalizes fear into something physical, dangerous, and inseparable from the culture that imagined it.
Poltergeist (1982)Supernatural & Occult
26,151 films
Forces beyond the natural world. Ghosts, demons, possession, witchcraft, and cosmic entities — these films operate in a reality where the metaphysical is real, evil is organized, and the barrier between the living and the dead is permeable.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)Human Monsters
29,643 films
The horror of recognizing evil in a human face. Serial killers, home invaders, torturers, and cannibals — films about the capacity for cruelty that lives within ordinary people, and the terrifying vulnerability of being someone's prey.
Get Out (2017)Psychological
16,284 films
Horror that lives in the mind. Paranoia, trauma, gaslighting, and the dissolution of identity — these films weaponize perception itself, asking whether you can trust your own consciousness when it is the only tool you have.
Frankenstein (1931)Body & Contagion
4,717 films
Horror expressed through the flesh. Transformation, mutation, contagion, and violation — the body as a site of terror, where the boundary between self and other is breached from within.
The Birds (1963)The natural world as antagonist. Predatory animals, ecological revenge, and forces of catastrophic scale — a reminder that humanity's dominion is an illusion, and that the wilderness does not recognize our special status.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)Genre Hybrids
11,993 films
Horror cross-pollinated with other genres. Sci-fi, comedy, western, war, musical, holiday, and post-apocalyptic — proof that fear is not confined to any single setting, tone, or narrative structure.
The Wicker Man (1973)Movements & Traditions
8,744 films
Distinct filmmaking traditions that shaped the genre. Giallo, folk horror, Gothic, J-Horror, Korean horror, German Expressionism, New French Extremity, and arthouse — each a cultural lens on what horror means and how it should be made.
