Horror has some interesting bedfellows. It has sibling genres that work well with it, friends it talks with on occasion, and some where...they met once and never wish to speak again. Often pairings seem very straight forward: mystery, fantasy, humor, and science fiction all meld lovely with the horrific and terrifying. They are not our interest today. Today our focus in on the weirder pairings. The ones that make you go “that's a thing?” and are curiosities to say the least. Let's get into some strange fictions, and figure out what we can do to mix and match our favorite genres together.
Let's start with one you probably wouldn't think fits with horror, but makes too much sense in context: drama. When you think of drama, you think of soap operas, stage plays, and overacting correct? Basically anything where people are overwhelmed by their emotions and it involves family, friends, and people fighting and arguing until the dust settles and all is well. Anyone else getting reminded of early horror? The Picture of Dorian Gray is all about a guy whose picture being painted somehow ends up cursed, where he looks beautiful and youthful as long as no one but him sees the true portrait that becomes disfigured with his horrid temperament and selfish acts. Frankenstein has a lot of drama, between the Creature and Frankenstein, the family and Frankenstein, and everything the Creature does behind Victor's back just causes more drama. Drama is a very useful component with all its secrets, badly overheard comments that lead to confusion, confessing of things last minute and all the chaos among the humans involved. Merging these two just requires a little conflict caused by circumstances, prejudices, and misunderstandings along with something in the wings that is bound to horrify your audience.
Here's a weird one, you ever run into horror poetry? Poetry doesn't seem like it would go well with horror considering all its romantic trappings but you probably ran into it in school. Edgar Allen Poe was probably your first dip into classic horror and The Raven is one of his most classic of works. There is also Death House by Robert Frost, a beautiful yet macabre poem that will get anyone in the mood for Halloween. Much like any style of writing, you can adapt the poem format to horror if you know how to write both. Though honestly, if I were to go for a style of fiction that lent itself to needing a horror story, if someone could make me a horror picture book, that would be amazing.
Two genres that are kind of similar could also do well as odd pieces of horror: Realistic fiction and historical fiction. Realistic fiction is the type that can lend itself to modern thrillers. Something so rooted in reality that it makes you look over your shoulder the whole time. Serial killers, genocide, and the potential of the cruelty of man, all lend themselves very well to it. If I were to think of a realistic fiction that stood out to me, I would have to go with a movie actually, I Spit on Your Grave. The whole plot (which is very graphic to the point of exploitative yet always keeps you in the position of the woman being attacked, not those attacking her) involves a woman being repeatedly raped by a group of four men who just see her as a sex object, and her getting revenge on all of them by manipulating them into their own deaths. It feels like something I could hear about on the news, with people debating if she was in the right to kill them. Or if you wish for something more modern, the Purge and other home invasion movies live off of this concept that they could really happen. If your scary tale is real enough that you could see it on the evening news, then it probably qualifies.
Historical fiction however, is a little rarer. They tend to be dramas, all about life way back when and maybe involve romance or mystery but rarely are they true horror. However, there was a very brilliant recent example, The Witch. A movie so authentic in its portrayal of life in the pre-Salem Witch Trials that it makes historians that focus on that era shocked that they cannot find a single thing that is not authentic. Yet there is so, so much horror. The psychological horror of a family falling apart, the supernatural horror of a witch in the woods trying to make them all fall, and the terror of spiritual horrors of the threat of eternal damnation. You can easily see why it is one of my favorites, I like historical movies and I love horror movies. This was a perfect merge of them.
I have not even begun to touch some of the weirder combinations of horror and other genres, so tell me what ones you like the most. I must say I have a strong love of historical fiction/horror combos, yet there are so few of them to find sometimes. Write your favorites below and if you like what I write here, you can read smaller versions of it and get updated on new posts on my Twitter account. Just click the little birdie above to find my twitter link or look for The Horror Chefette on Twitter. I can't wait to see what genre blending excites your horror tastes.