Differences between Horror and Thriller?

to further complicate it, there's the 'supernatural thriller.' huh? maybe there are definitions out there, maybe it's rather subjective. i know if i'm looking for a certain movie at the video store, it could be under any number of genre categories.

for me, thriller and suspense are the same thing, a lot of times involving the police, like you mentioned. horror doesn't absolutely have to have a supernatural element to it, though. the master of horror, poe, used very little supernatural elements. he was also father of the detective story, too. i don't think the two are mutually exclusive terms, though i'm sure there are genre 'requirements' for each that the other doesn't have.

my advice is going to be pretty generic. do research. i doubt few of us really want to memorize the cop handbook on how to hassle motorists and ignore the crack house on the corner, but a little research and observation goes a long way. too, most of us really don't care about how exactly down to the minute detail a police force works, so a few details is all we really need. i've read mysteries where the protag uses little cop terminology and detail, what what little, and almost obvious, there was was good enough.

then just write the story you want to write without trying to conform to some genre standard. if they want to publish it as is, the editor will classify it.

personally, i'd disagree a supernatural element is a cop out. try this: think up an original villain for the horror genre. not as easy as it sounds, lol. i do, however, feel it's a shield for some people, but i feel the same way about fantasy. it can be, but if you're serious about it, you realize quickly that most writers aren't offering anything new to the genre (myself included).

Hmmm. As far as not including cops, the way Ive done it is simply based off my true experience as a teenager with a certain "stomping ground" we all went to. It was about 10 milles out of town down old dirt roads on ranch land. The roads were bad and we'd stop at a certain point and walk to this old "ghost town" that had been a shell out there since the late 1800's. Cops never went out there because it was private property and the roads were awful. Believe me, I know, because when me and my stupid friends got a camero of all things stuck out there (I know, what were we thinking??? We were trespasser's not brain surgeons.), we actually called the cops for help and they plain out told us they don't go that far out of city limits. I dont know if this was just our small town mentality, or if thats how it goes every where, but its working in my novel.

BTW... does any one have any actual "text book" definitions for horror, thriller, or supernatural thriller?

www.agentquery.com has very good definitions for each genre. Under the for writers section. Good luck.

You don't necessarily have to have a supernatural element to classify a particular work as "horror". Good example: Scream. I've noticed also that there is usually police involvement in thrillers. That's probably because thrillers are supposed to be more realistic. When people start getting killed, it's realistic that the police would get involved. But there's more to a thriller than that. They seem to have a more scientific C.S.I. feel to them. They're full of forensic anthropologists, criminal profilers, etc.

The way I see it, a "supernatural thriller" could also be called a horror. For a story to be classified as horror, I think there are a few criteria that we know but never mention. For example: If a being of a supernatural nature etc comes into the story, the mood of a horror is used (even if there are no horrific events), the usual mind games and then there are your horror's like 'scream' which in my belief shouldn't be classified as horror, it should have a genre of it's own. "Poor Quality" maybe?

The irksomeness of labels! I always thought I was writing horror, simply because my characters were vampires. However, there isn't anything fearful or scary about them. I believe that brings up another term technicality. What is 'literary horror'?



My stories have thrilling and suspensful moments, but does that make them thrillers or suspense? I don't think so.

I worked at Borders recently and I pity the person that has to decide where the murder mystery vampire love story belongs. Mystery? Horror? Romance?!

Does my post make any sense?

You are running down a dark wet alley with someone chasing you. You try to hide but can't and the footsteps are gaining rapidly. Every alley door is locked
the person is right on top of you. Thriller

it's your Mother in law. Horror

So difficult to define genre in the modern era that we live in with all the hybrid genres and whatnot.

Tiaga: You rock.

In my opinion the difference between horror and thriller is simple.

In my opinion the difference between horror and thriller is simple.

IN the Horror Genre the focus in on DEATH!! whether it be by a supernatural being or a serial killer etc. (ie. who will die, HOW, when, and why) The idea is to "creep" you out on the inside, make you question reality in a sense that when you go home, you may wonder what exactly IS in your closet, or haunt you with scary imagery.

IN a suspense/thriller, the focus is on LIFE. How will/ will they make it out of this situation, who will save them, and when? Generally the fright ends when the movie is over, not lingering on afterward such as is with horror.

I like what Jbwriter said, but I'll add mine:

If you know that the killer is behind the door, you see him preparing for the unsuspecting hero as he's walking up to grab the knob. You get into the hero's thoughts about how he's got to do this to figure out this mess he's in, and his fingers touch the know. The killer raises the sword as the knob turns. The hero opens the door and starts through as his phone rings--to me, that's a Thriller because I know what's in wait for my hero, I know the danger he's walking blindly into and I want to know how he's going to escape this time and very much want to see how he's going to win in the end.

If you watch the hero walk into the house and there's just this sense of foreboding that SOMETHING is there--everything's telling you that SOMETHING lies in wait but not WHAT--and that SOMETHING strikes as the hero walks through the door--to me, that's Horror because I never know just what it is that's doing all the nastiness until far into the book and I don't have the guarantee that the hero will win in the end.

Jbwriter said:

In my opinion the difference between horror and thriller is simple.

IN the Horror Genre the focus in on DEATH!! whether it be by a supernatural being or a serial killer etc. (ie. who will die, HOW, when, and why) The idea is to "creep" you out on the inside, make you question reality in a sense that when you go home, you may wonder what exactly IS in your closet, or haunt you with scary imagery.

IN a suspense/thriller, the focus is on LIFE. How will/ will they make it out of this situation, who will save them, and when? Generally the fright ends when the movie is over, not lingering on afterward such as is with horror.

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If my high school English teacher wasn't lying to me, Gothic fiction (which spawned modern horror) tends to focus on death / decay, isolation and darkness. So I'd say that Jbwriter's post is fairly accurate.

One thing I want to add regarding the OP is that, personally, I would say keep the police involved if you can make them good characters. I would love to see more horror stories that feature more than a passing reference to police activity. Too many horror stories/movies that I read/see all but ignore police involvement and, especially when there is no supernatural element, that removes a sense of realism for me, which in turn reduces the potential to scare. You're left to presume the police are incompetent, apathetic or both when all this madness keeps happening and cops are apparently nowhere to be found. At least in my opinion.

The Saw movies initially intended to subvert this common occurrence by having police officers feature prominently in their movies. They subsequently subverted their own subversion by painting their city's police force as so patently incompetent and corrupt that the Jigsaw killer can get away with dozens of murders over the course of 4 (soon to be 5) films, many victims being police officers.

Thrillers are the modern action-adventure genre for books. They focus more on plot, plot-twists, action, gun fights, car chases, globe-trotting terrorists, and the like.

Horror has zombies, ghouls, werewolves, vampires, and / or a over-arching sense of horror (i.e. severe mood).

"Thriller" has a video.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself

comradebunny said:

"Thriller" has a video.

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With dancing zombies in it, just to confuse the issue.

The job of the horror tale is to scare you. It does this by loading scary imagery and horrific action onto its crisis-points. In between, it uses suspense to build anticipation.

By contrast, the job of the thriller is to excite and surprise. It does this by loading exciting action scenes onto its crisis-points. In between it uses suspense to build anticipation.

The suspense is the main common element, but plot-twists are also used in each.

Another key point of difference is that horror often adds to the tension by limiting a character's choices. Thrillers often add to the tension by limiting a character's time. Horror characters are often powerless for large periods of time, while thriller characters are often powerful - but their power alone isn't enough.

A final key point of difference is in the character trajectories. Horror stories almost always corrupt, destroy or destabilise their main characters. Thrillers often validate, vindicate or absolve them. (One reason that 'Scooby Doo' is cheese rather than horror is that its main characters are unchanged by the story.)

You can often take the same initial premise (e.g. a synthetic virus that melts people) and make a horror story or a thriller depending on how you write it.

Hope that this helps.

Where would Vampires fall? They are always in the Horror section...yet in my screenplay theres no real blood and guts and all that horror type stuff..more of like a journey story which i dont think is Horror but who knows...supernatural thriller??

To me, good horror is a story with some presence that creeps you out, or in the case of icky bug, it's a monster that eats half the characters, they say f**k a lot, and there is plenty of gratuitous sex that has nothing to do with the plot!

Seriously, the first part about the presence creeping you out is a good example of horror. There is some supernatural entity that causes havoc, such as how Bentley Little writes.

When it comes to icky bug, it is a monster or creature that the MC must fight against, usually with a high body count.

I know vampires are classified in the horror category, but as I've stated in other posts on other threads, to me, they are just bloody romances, and should proabably be in their own category, or in romance. There are, of course, exceptions, as in "They Hunger" by Scott Nicholson.

The whole point of horror is to horrify you, scare you in some way, or at least scare you (nod nod wink wink). To me, vampires never have been and never will be scary unless they are used as just a monster and not the romantic lead to foil of the MC.

However, as with any style, there are exceptions that just don't apply. Sometimes that lucky SOB gets published, too.

heatgirl said:

Where would Vampires fall? They are always in the Horror section...yet in my screenplay theres no real blood and guts and all that horror type stuff..more of like a journey story which i dont think is Horror but who knows...supernatural thriller??

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to confuse the issue even further, Vampires are more Gothic than Horror or Thriller, so that kind of shoves them over into the Mystery category. I consider myself a horror writer, but it's not scary, and it's relatively bloodless, so I call it "gothic" and tend to align myself more with Mystery writers (where I do most of my AW postings) - I can't go all the way to Romance - now THAT stuff is scary! and those wimmin - yeesh!!!!