Sub-Genres – Dyer's Dungeon:

The Giallo

Posted 5/27/2026

You may have heard me or someone else mention the word “Giallo” or “Gialli” (the plural form) when talking about horror movies. But what is a Giallo and does it belong in the horror classification? These are both hard questions to answer and have created a debate and some heated arguments among film and horror fans.

If you know the Italian language, you know that the word Giallo is simply Italian for yellow. Giallo films got their names from pulp fiction books in Italy with similar themes, which were known for their yellow bindings. But what classifies a Giallo from a standard mystery? This is where a lot of debate comes in. Like most genres, there are both purists and those who take a loose interpretation of the genre. For some, a film can only be a Giallo if it is made in Italy, while for others, films made in other countries can be considered Giallo if they meet the same qualities of a Giallo. But what are those qualities? Again, there is a lot of debate as to what makes a Giallo. Generally, a Giallo movie is a murder mystery and psychological thriller. The police are usually ineffectual, and the investigation is mostly done by a non-professional who happens to be a witness to the crime or its after effect. Often some form of artist (writwr, painter, musician, etc.) The killings are usually brutal and graphic. Although not always the case, Giallo tends to have a beautiful/horrible veneer, contrasting brutality, violence, and blood with beautiful cinematography and images. Bold colors and beautiful set pieces are common. As is of ten the case in Italian films, logic is secondary to image, so often the resolution is out of left field or seems to make little sense.

Some of the other tropes of the typical Giallo include a plethora of red herrings sprinkled liberally throughout, the killer wearing black gloves, and the person investigating or a witness remembering a specific clue or fact near the end of the film to help him solve the crime. Violence is often eroticized as it is in much of Italian horror but usually at a higher level. The music is commonly more progressive featuring jazz, rock, or heavy synthesized music on the soundtrack. More often than not, Gialli seem to have artistic sounding titles such as Short Night of the Glass Dolls (1971), Death Walks on High Heels (1971), or The House with the Laughing Windows (1976). It was not uncommon to incorporate a number and/or animal in the title to let audience know that they would indeed be seeing a typical giallo. Such titles include: 4 Flies on Grey Velvet (1971), The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) and Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)

The movie most consider to be the first giallo is The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) directed by Mario Bava but many of the tropes seemed to really take hold with Blood and Black Lace (1964,) also directed by Bava. This movie sets the standards for cinematography and many of the tropes used later, such as the white cloth covered face and the black gloves, made their first appearance. But it was The Bird with the Crystal Plumage by Dario Argento in his directorial debut that really made the genre take-off. The genre peaked in the 70s but continued through the 80s, heralded by such giallo Lumineers as Argento, Mario and Lamberto Bava, Silvio Amadio, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi and many others.

It’s interesting how you can draw a straight line through from the German Krimis (moody detective stories made in Germany based on the writings of Edgar Wallace) to the Gialli, and to the next logical step, the slasher. Much like a scientist traces evolution from fish to amphibian to reptile to bird, a clear path can be fleshed out, linking the genres by movies that slowly evolved in style, tropes, and focus; each evolving and tweaked to the next needed attribute to keep up and survive the changes in the world.

So, are Giallo horror? Again. It depends on who you ask. Most people would include them but again, some purists would consider them mysteries and not horror. In truth, they are mysteries, with rarely any supernatural elements, at least in the early wave of films. So why are they any more of a horror movie than a typical Sherlock Holmes movie or other murder mystery? The most likely reason is the brutality of the genre, with the murders being shown graphically as opposed to being discovered later or done in a more refined manor. This brutality is coupled nicely with a sense of dread that a standard detective film lacks. In those films, we follow the detective, focusing more on the clues than the grisly murders themselves. We rarely fear for the detective to end up the same as the victim. In the Giallo however, the sense of dread is overwhelming, and our amateur sleuth is walking a few steps behind a brutal killer, making us fear at any time he could share the fate of the other victims. So clearly, the director wants us to be afraid and horrified, which in my eyes puts us squarely in the horror genre.

If you have not yet seen a Giallo, I highly recommend watching one. You may find it is not your style or you may find a doorway to a new expression of horror. You may even become hooked on them. Regardless of the result, it will open your mind to a new style of horror and thus further your education into the many facets of horror movies. Despite its evolutionary path, the Giallo is unlike any other form of horror you’ve seen in the past.

Italian Gothic

Posted 5/24/2026

First there is gothic horror. Gothic horror usually resides in times past. It features, dungeons, castles, old dark mansions and lightning storms. Think in terms of Edgar Allen Poe. It often focuses on the supernatural. It may feature ghosts, witches, vampires, and many of your classic monsters. Besides time period, aesthetic is probably the most important feature in normal gothic horror.

Then there is the Italian version of gothic horror which had its heyday from 1957 through the late 60’s. To begin with, Italian gothics often put a modern spin on the gothic monsters. Often the monsters and ghosts don’t exist at all but are just red herrings to hide the plots of an all too human monster. When they do exist, they often created by science, through the use of potions, injections, or pills and/or play a lesser role in the proceedings. While the Italian gothics use time recession, it isn’t as drastic as the typical gothics. They often do feature the large mansions, castles and dungeons as well as the gothic aesthetic, which is why they still fall in the gothic category, albeit slightly to the side. In fact, death and decay are the major aesthetic, with copious uses of crumbling buildings and cemeteries to visually represent this.

What makes Italian Gothic really interesting to me is the reoccurring themes and images that seem to crop up time and again. First, in direct contrast to the American gothic films, men are consistently shown as dominated by the more powerful female. From I Vampiri (1957) to Black Sunday (1960) to The Long Hair of Death (1964), the woman always holds power over the men. Secondly, the institute of marriage is nearly always degraded and shown as a farce. Usually, the male tries to use it to his advantage to gain inheritance or something of value or one of the spouses is cheating on the other. Examples abound and are the main driving plot point much of the time. In the first case, movies like Lady Morgan’s Vengeance (1965), are a prime example and Dr. Blood’s Coffin (1961) and The Ghost (1963) show examples of the latter. In addition, the Italian gothic seems infatuated with the idea of the evil doppelganger. Movies abound with the horrible look-alike side of a major character. Finally, the overall point of the Italian gothic seems to be to unsettle, not scare the viewer.

There are really two periods of Italian Gothics as I see it. When Mussolini was in power, cinema was harshly controlled. After his regime ended in 1943, Italians enjoyed horror, but could not accept that horror movies that came from their own country could be good. They seemed to feel horror was the province of the US or UK so most Italian horror movies did not do well. Therefore, actors and directors of horror movies in Italy began using fake anglicized names. The first horror movies made in Italy during this period were the gothics and they started about 1957 with I Vampiri. The gothic period had ended long ago in the US but these movies were still adored by Italian cinema goers and thus influenced and created Italy’s own gothic wave. For the first 10-15 years or so, most (but not all) of these movies were shot in Black and White and used the wonderful castles and ruins that could be found throughout Europe. In addition to these beautiful and gothic setting, the movies were often full of women exploring at night in white diaphanous robes. This is the first, and closest to true gothic horror.

Eventually, Italian cinema loosened its censorship and began to feature much more sexually explicit material and nudity. In addition, giallo movies (Italian mysteries, often with heavy violence and bloodshed) fell into favor in the 70s which affected the themes of the gothics.

In this new environment of cinema, gothic horrors became too tame. They soon began to turn their focus more towards nudity and sex. While the gothics always hinted at sex and deviant sexual activity, they became more prominently featured and shown openly. Example are such movies as Lady Frankenstein and The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave.

Likewise, violence and gore began to take over the gothics as well, minimalizing the story and gothic aesthetics. The weakened gothics of this time would be the second wave and had much less of a gothic feel. Eventually, they died out completely in favor of zombie movies, gialli, and more explicitly graphic horror.

If you find Italian gothics interesting, much of the information for this article came from Roberto Curti’s book Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1957-1969. I suggest reading it and it’s follow up.

Eco-Terror or Man Vs. Nature

Posted 2/8/2026

The nature vs man sub-genre is pretty much what it sounds like; humans in a bid for survival fight off the elements, harsh environments, and/or wild animals (& sometimes plants). It is not strictly a horror sub-genre, but is when it is taken to its most violent or a supernatural element is added. The first man vs. nature movie may be “The Gold Rush” from 1925 but likely the first horror movie to fall into the sub-genre was The Birds (1963) by Alfred Hitchcock. The genre really took wing (or fin) after the smash success of Jaws in 1975. There were many copycat films immediately following, many water-based such as tentacles (1977), The Last Shark (1981), and Mako: The Jaws of Death. But some were of the “jaws on land” variety, such as Grizzly (1976) which followed the same template but took the action to the forest and Claws (1977). Many of these were successful, which may be a major reason the sub-genre lived on and expanded.

The man vs. nature can be further sub-divided into multiple other sub-categories (sub-sub genres?). These overlap and can get muddled at times, but they basically consist of survival, eco-horror, and animals attack. In addition, some people consider the giant bug/critters subgenre to be part of the man vs. nature sub-genre. If you do, then the first is probably “Them!” (1954). Folk horror often overlaps with this sub-genre as well since it often focuses on man’s close ties to nature.

Of these 3 divisions, Eco-terror holds my deepest love. Eco-terror uses the concept that we have harmed the environment or the animal kingdom somehow and they are getting revenge on mankind for it. Pollution, pesticides, and a multitude of other crimes against nature can cause a species (or a multitude of them) to seek retribution against us. If you include giant bug movies (and in the case of eco-terror movies I do, since it is the assault on nature that cause the creatures to grow) you could possibly again point to “Them!”, but since the ants are not truly seeking revenge (just being ants) when attacking, some would not include it here. This particular sub-genre really took root in the early 70s when pollution was at its greatest in the U.S. and DDT and other pesticides were becoming a growing concern. In fact, the first certain eco-horror was “Frogs” (1972) where a multitude of swamp creatures join forces to assault an island and the family spending the day there. In many of these movies the animals share an almost bee-like hivemind, or some animals seem to be leading the others. Some other examples from the 70s include Day of the Animals (1977), Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) and Long Weekend (1978). The odd and poorly made movie Birdemic: Shock and Horror, carried the mantle into 2010. Stretching the boundaries, some of the stranger movies that could be included in this category are Gojira and Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.

Survival movies are usually a simple case of man lost in the wilderness and pitted against nature. There is rarely anything supernatural about it and there is usually no malevolence against mankind. Just unfortunate situations man finds himself in. Examples would be Frozen (2010- not the Disney one!) and possibly Crawl (2019) or the Grey (2011). Of course, this sub-genre overlaps the others as survival is the main goal of all man vs nature movies. In survival movies, animals may be involved, but they are just a part of the problem. They are not the main focus. Freezing, exposure, starving, and drowning are all bigger or equal problems. Of the 3 categories, this is the least likely to be a true horror movie.

There is some debate whether natural disaster movies fall into the horror movie category. Is Avalanche a horror movie? Is The Poseidon Adventure? If you think so, they would fall into this category.

The broadest of these categories is the animal attack films. They are so broad that some people even break them down further into normal animal attack movies or animal revenge movies. Whether by circumstance or by deliberate response to a personal injustice; the animals and their attacks are the main focus of the movie. Movies of this general attack type would include such movies as Jaws (1975), Tarantula (1955) (if you include giant bug movies), and The Roost (2005). Even Cocaine Bear (2023) would be included here. Animal Revenge movies would include Orca (1977) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987) and the end of Willard (1971).

Man vs. Nature movies are a unique breed among horror films. They have their own tropes, usually distinct from standard horror, and often focus mostly on suspense and jump scares while terror and horror play a lesser role. Although there are exceptions such as both versions of Willard.

Slashers

Posted 1/16/26

The Slasher became a common and surprisingly popular form of horror. At first glance, the Slasher Sub-genre should be an easy one to define. Madman with a weapon kills people. Simple. Many horror fans and writers leave it at that and that is a perfectly acceptable way to look at it.

But as a person with a background in Zoology it’s too simple for me. I need a clearer classification. Something that separates the true slasher film from just any movie about a psychopath with a knife or gun. Is Psycho a slasher? Is When a Stranger Calls? To me, not truly.

First off, let’s look at what a slasher is and isn’t.

Before the Slashers there were the proto-slashers. Movies that highly influenced the creation of slashers and pioneered many of the tropes of slashers, but were not slasher movies in and of themselves. Examples would be Blood and Black Lace and other Giallio, Bay of Blood, and even Maniac falls into this category for me. They feature killers and even some of the slasher tropes. But in the end, they fall short of the cat and mouse game of a killer and a small cast of centralized victims; which to me truly defines this sub-genre. Plus, we know way too much about the killer’s life.

In addition, based on the definition of slasher movie by John Kenneth Muir, which I am a fan of; a slasher has certain core tropes ingrained in them. However, some slashers play with these tropes and may drop one or two altogether. Still, they carry enough of the tropes as to be still classified as slashers.

Slashers center around an organizing principle or theme. This organizing principle supplies the slasher with who his victims will be, set pieces to work with and even his weapons. It usually provides a reason why the victims are together and if isolated, why. For example, the organizing principle of My Bloody Valentine is a holiday party in the coal mines. Thus, the slasher wears a gas mask and miner uniform, uses a mining pick, and kills off the kids having the Valentine ’s Day party in the mines.
Slashers are motivated by a crime from the past. Something happened to them or to someone they care for when they were very young. Thus, their killing is a sort of revenge. The people he kills were usually involved or are stand-ins for those that were involved (they have the same role or job as the original guilty party.)

To these I would add one of my own.

The face of the slasher is hidden by a mask or by the director’s choice. Either way we don’t see the appearance of the slasher, and we often don’t know his identity. Whether we know his identity or not, we don’t see the killer’s face until near the end of the movie when it can be revealed to either surprise us with the slasher’s identity or shock us with his disfigured face. Hiding the face of the slasher gives the killer a more unearthly, mysterious or inhuman feel. Even when he is just aa human.

Below is a chart giving some prime examples of these concepts in use.

Movie	Organizing Principle	Victim Pool	Past Crime	ID hidden by
Friday the 13^th	Summer camp	Counselors	Drowning; while counselors were fooling around	POV
Friday the 13^th Part 2	Summer Camp	Counselors	Death of Mrs. Vorhees	Paper Bag
Terror Train	Magic/Graduation	Students	Prank gone wrong	Costumes
Curtains	Casting Session	Actresses	Actress locked in mental ward	Hag mask
The Burning	Summer Camp	Counselors	Prank gone wrong	Camera angles
Stage Fright	Play rehearsal	Cast and crew	None	Owl head

In addition to these, there are common tropes used in the slasher film.

Vice before Slice. In this scenario the victims (usually teenagers) are having premarital sex, getting drunk, or doing drugs, just prior to being killed.
The final girl, as she would be later named in studies of slashers, are virginal and stereo-typical “good girls.”
A special date, event or holiday. Examples would include Birthday (Happy Birthday to Me), Christmas (Black Christmas), and Friday the 13^th (Friday the 13^th)
The Harbinger. There is usually someone, often appearing as crazy or eccentric local, who attempts to warn the victims of the danger they are in. they are usually laughed off and ignored.
True slashers are little more than a series of set-pieces (or kills) linked together and usually include stock characters; the jock, the jester, the slut/bitch, and the final girl. The rest of the characters are generally not fleshed out and are merely there to up the body count.

Finally, there are the optional tropes that are common, but not necessary to consider the movie a slasher. These include:

The twist ending (referred to as the sting in the tale). Basically, what we most often see here is the killer we thought was dead return for a final, dramatic appearance. The most famous example is Jason jumping from the water in the first Friday the 13^th.
A scene that shows our final girl coming upon all the victims laid out for her to see.

Slashers permeated the screens throughout the 80s to the point that the formula grew stale. At some point, probably with the introduction of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street the slasher evolved into the Supernatural Slasher, a sub-category of slasher. Technically Jason and Possibly Michael Meyers fell into the supernatural slashers when they became more-than-human in nature. This new wrinkle brought new life into the slasher film and the films began a new life. Movies such as Leprechaun & Child’s Play further exemplify this sub-category of slasher.

So where does that leave us for movies that don’t follow these tropes. As the Slasher films started, and again later when they began to wear out their welcome, some of the tropes were toyed with or left out altogether. But in a true slasher, most remained in some form even if one was lost or inverted. Slashers regained their popularity with the Scream movies which spelled out many of the tropes for the viewer taking on a meta-aspect, but at heart, they were slashers.

Using this definition, many of the movies that a sizable population consider slashers, are actually not. Many “killer on the loose” movies would actually fall into the serial killer sub-genre and not slashers. Is the movie more of a police procedural ala 7? Is the killer randomly killing without seeking revenge for a crime from the past? Again, more likely a serial killer. Do we follow the killer outside of his “slashing”? Certainly not a slasher. An example would be Maniac, which seems to be more of a character study, than a true slasher. For me at least, this surprisingly means that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not a slasher but a proto slasher as it helped lead the way to the slasher sub-genre but does not follow slasher protocol. For example, the killers are a family unit, who hunt for food, not for revenge, and we see much of their home life.

In conclusion, while many horror movies feature a killer that stalks and kills people, many of these are not truly of the slasher sub-genre in my opinion. The slasher sub-genre is far more specific. Every movie with a knife-wielding killer should not be considered a slasher anymore than every movie with a lawyer character should be considered a legal thriller.

Cosmic Horror

Posted on 11/27/25

What is cosmic horror? Basically, it is a horror sub-genre that is built on the idea of humankind being just an insignificant speck in the universe. More specifically, that there are greater forces and beings somewhere that are beyond our fathoming, and mankind means nothing to them. To them we are gnats and can be ignored or used at their whims. It also often theorizes that madness awaits those that see these beings or glimpse the hidden knowledge of them.

It can sometimes be a fine line as to what is encapsulated by the term “cosmic horror.” After all, many horror movies have a powerful monster that sees humans as a mere annoyance. On that definition alone Godzilla could be considered cosmic horror. The big difference is that the beings in cosmic horror are either never seen, being above our station; or they are so massive in power as to be “god-like.” Celestial (or ocean depth) beings that man can barely fathom or understand and that come from another dimension or place in the cosmos. For all his might, Godzilla is just a radiation-spewing, giant lizard.

For cosmic horror, this god like being need not be seen, but his presence must be felt. We may know it is manipulating or affecting our reality, or encounter its minions in our world. These scenarios clearly spell out the alien force even if it doesn’t show its actual face within the movie itself.

Sometimes the cosmic horror genre is referred to as “Lovecraftian” horror. But although H.P. Lovecraft based movies are a prime example of this sub-genre, there are a multitude of other movies that fall into this category. Such movies as In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Possession (1981), and even the horror science-fiction hybrid Event Horizon (1997) fall under the Cosmic Horror banner despite having no connection with H.P. Lovecraft.

"Found Footage"

Found footage horror movies are very divisive. Some people love them, but many hate them. I fall in the first camp. Yes, I know they are often shaky and have been known to inflict people with motion sickness. I also know that the idea of keeping the camera running throughout, often gets stretched very thin and is hard to believe. I also know some of them sneak in “cheats” where you see things the cameraman couldn’t actually film (Including himself sometimes).

But I feel like these are issues that are more than compensated for by the sense of urgency and immersion into the action and horrors the characters are facing.

Technically, many of the films categorized as found footage are not found footage at all. Actual found footage refers to movies that were supposedly “found” after some disaster or incident and are being viewed later. These movies often start with a title card letting you know that the people of the film went missing. The most famous of course, would be the Blair Witch Project. That particular movie had a whole story built up around the missing people and recovered film which was spread by fake internet sites long before the movie was even released; all of which helped build up hype for the movie; gave it more depth, and frankly, more appeal, than the movie had by itself.

Still, any film put together from clips, raw footage, or other sources presented as “real” are often grouped into this category, meaning the thing that most of them share is a point-of-view or an “as seen through the eye of the cameraman” perspective. So, the camera is acknowledged by characters on screen instead of ignored as in most movies. It is in fact, a character itself. Sometimes the film has a stitched together feel as if someone took multiple sources and combined them to make a coherent film or “Mockumentary” while others just run as the camera runs, usually giving a more “you are there” feel but sacrificing a streamlined narrative which often leads to a lot of “filler” material.

There is some debate as to what the first “Found footage” film was, with many people erroneously granting the Blair Witch Project (1999) with that honor. Actually, there was a found footage movie called The Last Broadcast (1998) which came out prior to blair witch. Even more so, it’s most likely the honor should go to Cannibal Holocaust, an Italian movie that falls into the cannibal cycle that was popular at that time. The movie starts out in standard movie format as it follows a man searching for 4 lost documentarians who set out to film the natives cannibals of the amazon rainforest and went missing. The second half of the film is presented as the recovered footage as he shows it to the backers of the film. This half plays out like a found footage film with a truly horrible resolution and several dark secrets learned about the film crew themselves, leaving us to wonder who the true monsters were.

The release of Blair Witch brought the found footage movie to the forefront of the genre again since it was a cheap way to make a movie but capable of earning large dollar amounts. Unfortunately, as a one trick pony (investigating missing film makers) interest by moviegoers waned quickly and found footage went underground again. It began to resurface in the 2000s with the release and success of Paranormal Activity and its sequels. With that film and since it was used not just create a mythos of vanishing filmmakers and the discovery of their missing film, but as an actual technique to tell a unique story in a way that gives a sense of reality to a movie and to bring viewers deeper into the world and action of the film. With this expansion of its purpose, hopefully the found footage film will remain a staple of modern filmmaking.

Sub Genres: A Deep Dive