The horror film is defined by The Dictionary of Film Studies as representing "disturbing and dark subject matter, seeking to elicit responses of fear, terror, disgust, shock, suspense, and, of course, horror from their viewers."

Asian horror films
Horror films in Asia have been noted as being inspired by national, cultural or religious folklore, particularly beliefs in ghosts or

Psychological effects
In a study done by Uri Hasson et al., brain waves were observed via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This study used the inter-subject correlation analysis (ISC) method of determining results. It was shown that

In his book Caligari's Children: The Film as Tale of Terror (1980), author Siegbert Solomon Prawer stated that those wanting to read into horror films in

Horror is a malleable genre and often can be altered to accommodate other genre types such as science fiction, making some films difficult to categorize.
Body horror
A genre that emerged in the 1970s, body horror films focus on the

In film criticism
Critic Robin Wood was not the first film critic to take the horror film seriously, but his article Return of the

• Dixon, Wheeler Winston. A History of Horror. (Rutgers University Press; 2010), ISBN 978-0-8135-4796-1.
• Steffen Hantke, ed. American Horror Film: