Horror Categories
Horror takes many forms, from supernatural stories and psychological unease to creature features, dark comedy and graphic extreme cinema.
The categories below describe the different traditions, styles and storytelling approaches represented by the festival. They are intended to help audiences, filmmakers, press, students and anyone interested in horror cinema understand how each category is defined and how different works may relate to one another. A film may draw on several subgenres, and the tone, intensity and content of individual films can vary considerably. One category will usually provide the clearest overall description of the work, but the category name alone should not be treated as a complete indication of age suitability or specific content. For filmmakers: submit to the category that best reflects the film’s principal identity, central source of horror or dominant creative approach. Where another category provides a broader, clearer or more accurate fit, we may reclassify a selected film during programming or awards administration. This does not affect the film’s selection status, eligibility or awards consideration.
Animation
Animation uses illustrated, modelled or digitally created imagery to tell horror stories. It may be unsettling, atmospheric, playful, graphic, surreal or experimental, and can use visual style as strongly as dialogue or conventional live action to create fear and tension.
This category includes traditional 2D animation, 3D computer animation, stop-motion, clay animation, rotoscoping, cut-out work, motion graphics and mixed-media techniques. Animated horror may explore any subgenre, including supernatural, psychological, creature, body, folk, science-fiction and comedy horror.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when animation forms a substantial part of the film’s storytelling and visual identity, rather than appearing only in titles, effects or isolated sequences.
Folk Horror
Folk Horror draws fear from folklore, inherited beliefs, old customs, community traditions and humanity’s relationship with landscape and the natural world.
Stories may involve local legends, superstition, isolated communities, seasonal ceremonies, ancestral secrets, pagan or religious practices, inherited curses and traditions that become threatening or oppressive. Folk Horror is not tied to one country or culture and may include rural, urban, regional and culturally specific traditions.
Films drawing upon living cultures, sacred traditions or Indigenous knowledge should approach their subject with care, understanding and respect.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when folklore, tradition, belief, community or place is central to the film’s source of horror. A story focused mainly on ghosts, possession or occult forces may fit Supernatural Horror more closely.
Found Footage
Found Footage presents some or all of its story through recordings made within the fictional world of the film.
The material may appear to come from mobile phones, handheld cameras, webcams, surveillance systems, body cameras, video diaries, live streams, screen recordings, news footage, recovered tapes or documentary crews. The format often creates immediacy by making events appear to have been captured as they happened.
Found Footage may also include screenlife films, fictional documentaries, mockumentaries and hybrid works that combine recorded material with conventional filmmaking.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when the recording device, footage or act of documentation is central to the storytelling, rather than being used only in a brief scene.
General Horror
General Horror is for films that do not fit neatly within one specialist category, or that combine several horror traditions without one clearly dominating.
The category may include gothic horror, body horror, vampire stories, home invasion, survival horror, cosmic horror, dark fantasy, cursed objects, revenge stories, urban horror and other frightening, macabre or unsettling work.
It also provides a home for films that deliberately cross boundaries or resist straightforward classification.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when no other listed category clearly represents the film’s main identity. Vampire stories may also fit Monster / Creature or Supernatural Horror when those elements are more central.
Gore / Extreme
Gore / Extreme Horror places graphic, visceral, transgressive or highly confrontational material at the centre of the viewing experience.
Films may feature detailed practical effects, severe fictional injury, body horror, dismemberment, torture, disturbing transformation, taboo subject matter or sustained imagery intended to provoke a strong physical or emotional response. Blood alone does not necessarily make a film extreme; the challenging material should be a defining part of its tone, style or identity.
This category concerns fictional screen content. Material involving real unlawful harm, abuse, exploitation or cruelty is not accepted.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when graphic or extreme content is central to the film rather than incidental. Significant sensitive content must be disclosed accurately during submission.
Horror Comedy
Horror Comedy combines fear, the macabre or the grotesque with humour.
The comedy may be dry, absurd, satirical, surreal, crude, playful or deliberately excessive. Films may include supernatural comedy, creature comedy, slasher parody, zombie comedy, splatter comedy, mockumentary and social satire.
The relationship between horror and humour may be balanced, or one may be used to sharpen the effect of the other.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when both horror and comedy contribute meaningfully to the work. A horror film containing only an occasional joke would not normally belong here.
Monster / Creature
Monster / Creature Horror is built around a non-human, transformed or extraordinary being that creates fear, danger or uncertainty.
The central creature might be an original monster, cryptid, mutated animal, extraterrestrial life form, parasite, ancient entity, giant beast or a physically manifested supernatural being. It may be shown directly or suggested through sound, shadow, aftermath and implication.
The creature may be created through performance, costume, puppetry, practical effects, animation, visual effects or a combination of methods. Vampire, werewolf and other traditional creature stories may also fit here when the creature itself is the main focus.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when the creature is central to the film’s identity, conflict or source of horror. If the story is driven mainly by haunting, possession or occult forces, Supernatural Horror may be a closer fit.
Psychological Horror
Psychological Horror creates fear through the mind, emotions and uncertain perception.
These films may explore paranoia, obsession, grief, isolation, memory, manipulation, identity, dreams, hallucination, altered reality or a gradual loss of control. The audience may be left uncertain about what is real, what is imagined and whether the threat is internal or external.
Supernatural or violent events may still occur, but the main tension usually arises from character experience, emotional instability or psychological unease. Work involving mental health should avoid presenting harmful stereotypes as fact and should treat sensitive experiences responsibly.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when the film’s principal source of horror is psychological tension, perception or emotional disturbance rather than a mainly physical or supernatural threat.
Sci-Fi Horror
Sci-Fi Horror combines frightening or disturbing ideas with speculative science, future technology or unfamiliar worlds.
Stories may involve artificial intelligence, robotics, space travel, extraterrestrial life, scientific experiments, cloning, genetic engineering, virtual reality, cybernetics, dystopian societies, environmental collapse, infection or technology escaping human control.
The science-fiction element should shape the film’s central threat, atmosphere or ideas rather than simply providing a futuristic setting.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when speculative science or technology is essential to the source of horror. Dark fantasy without a meaningful scientific or technological element will usually fit General Horror or Supernatural Horror more closely.
Slasher
Slasher films centre on a killer, stalker or violent pursuer targeting one or more people.
The antagonist may be human, masked, unidentified or supernatural. Stories often involve pursuit, escalating danger, survival, isolation and attempts to escape or confront the attacker. The category includes traditional masked-killer films as well as home invasion, revenge, holiday horror and self-aware reinterpretations of the form.
Graphic violence is not essential. A film may qualify through suspense, stalking and threat even when violence is limited or occurs off screen.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when pursuit by a killer or violent aggressor forms the main structure and source of tension. Films centred more broadly on survival or psychological manipulation may fit General or Psychological Horror instead.
Supernatural Horror
Supernatural Horror involves forces, beings or events that appear to exist beyond ordinary scientific explanation.
This may include ghosts, spirits, hauntings, demons, possession, witchcraft, curses, occult rituals, psychic phenomena, haunted objects, communication with the dead or encounters with another realm. The supernatural element may be explicit, subtle or deliberately ambiguous.
Films rooted strongly in traditional communities, folklore and landscape may fit Folk Horror more closely. Films whose uncertainty comes mainly from a character’s perception may be better suited to Psychological Horror.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when a supernatural force or unexplained phenomenon is central to the film’s identity and source of fear.
Zombie
Zombie Horror centres on the dead returning to life, reanimated bodies, infected people or beings that display recognisably zombie-like behaviour.
Stories may involve supernatural resurrection, viruses, fungi, parasites, scientific accidents, isolated outbreaks or post-apocalyptic societies. They may be frightening, dramatic, action-led, satirical, comedic or experimental.
The category can include traditional undead stories as well as modern infection narratives, provided the zombie-like threat is central to the fictional world.
For filmmakers: Choose this category when zombies, reanimation or infection-driven beings form a substantial part of the story or central conflict. Films about unrelated ghosts, vampires or general monsters should be placed elsewhere.
