Definition

Terror is the feeling of fear or phobia in its maximum expression. If

fear is defined as a survival scheme, it can be assumed that terror
occurs when fear has overcome the controls of the brain and can
no longer be thought rationally

There are many types of terror, and if your purpose is to know them
all to captivate your audience with a great scare, you have come to
the right place. Because we all fear something, but that something
is not the same for everyone.

We will explore the horror subgenre not only in movies, so you can
make your own, but also in books, video games and even YouTube,
since innovative ways to provoke fear have been generated in this
portal and other Internet spaces.

Types of terror in the cinema and other media

A first way of approaching the types of terror is through the cinema,

which draws heavily on the literary tradition. Thus, taking into
account information about terror from the ViveUVM magazine,
belonging to the University of the Valley of Mexico, we can make a
classification that covers almost all existing fears and formats.

Slasher

Many times, it is often confused with gore for showing explicit

scenes, but the slasher stands out as an independent horror
subgenre by presenting its own characteristics, as a murderer who
is generally motivated by revenge and is, practically, an
unstoppable force of the nature.
During the 80s and part of the 90s, other types of terror were not as
popular as this one and, therefore, it is a product of its time.
Wikipedia reminds us that the victims were mostly teenagers who
have or use illicit substances, so there is a moralizing message.

That was evident in films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday
the 13th, which brought us the iconic Freddy Krueger and Jason
Voorhees, respectively. Here the villain is the one who has more
narrative weight, but we will see that more in depth when talking
about what types of characters are in horror stories.

Horror
This is the most common subgenre of horror, as it deals with
paranormal presence or manifestations. It could also be said that it
is the oldest if we go back to the legends of ancient civilizations with
supernatural beings that had to be taken care of.

Its difference with types of terror such as the slasher is that the
threat is not necessarily a being as such, it can be an inexplicable
place or presence. For this reason, it is always made clear that the
things that are happening do not fit within the norm, they defy the
rules within the world created in history.

Tapes like The Exorcist fit here and, more recently, the saga The
Conjuring, which gave us the doll Annabelle and the demon Valak,
better known as The Nun. However, to better understand the
metaphysical nature of this concept of horror movies, you can see
The Shining or Pet Graveyard, both adaptations of Stephen King
books where evil has no physical presence and manifests itself
through third parties.
Thriller

Its main component is suspense, the public is hooked in anticipation

of what will happen next. Unlike this, other types of terror do not
demand so much from the writer or screenwriter when it comes to
spinning the events of the plot, since each one must open new
mysteries and close others, and in the end everything must connect
logically.
Something that has the thriller and not other types of horror movies
is the idea of being on a quest. It can be the detective trying to find
out who the murderer is or someone close to the victim trying to find
his whereabouts.

A more or less recent film with these elements is Emergency Line

(The Call, in English), with Halle Berry, but as major exponents of
the horror genre are The Silence of the Innocents, by Jonathan
Demme, and Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, considered the father of
suspense.

Psychological terror

The majority of the public tends to easily identify the types of

terror described above, but not the psychological one. And it is
that, in this case, fear can take many forms, and all of them tend to
attack the mind of the protagonist instead of his body.

The story unfolds entirely from the protagonist's perspective, so

his hallucinations or delusions are mistaken for reality. It is
common in this concept of horror movies that in the end it turns out
that the character with whom we empathize at the beginning was
a deranged person and the cause of all evil.

Tapes that masterfully handle this plot are The Sinister Island,
with Leonardo DiCaprio, and Fracture, which was released on
Netflix in 2019. But, speaking of classics, this horror genre has
Rosemary's Baby as a great exponent. Also keep an eye out for
Babadook, whose ending is rare for these kinds of stories.

What types of characters are in horror stories?

With so many types of characters in a horror story, novel, movie or
video game, how can we classify them?
three categories: conventional, sinister or mysterious, and
monstrous.

We will go a little further, offering a typology based on the roles of

protagonist, antagonist and secondary character that we can
appreciate in the different types of terror that exist.

The Avenger
We start with the antagonist and, specifically, the one whose
motivation is revenge. If you are a fan of the horror subgenre in
cinema, you may have noticed that this is how Freddy Krueger and
Jason Voorhees started.

The charismatic
There are antagonists who, despite being evil, cause us sympathy.
In these types of horror movies we meet again Freddy Krueger,
who could be funny without breaking the tone of the tape, and
Hannibal Lecter, who despite being a cannibal is so sophisticated
that it causes you to sit down and chat with him.

The unstoppable force

This is the antagonist who stops at nothing, whether they shoot

him, hit him, or do everything humanly possible. It is not
necessarily an extraordinary being, like Pennywise, it can also be a
human being like Ghostface, from the Scream saga.

There are many types of terror, but none have characters as

threatening as this one, whose maximum representative is the
xenomorph from the first Alien movie. And we can also make a
special mention of the T-800 from the film that gave rise to the
Terminator saga.

The supernatural entity

Here, evil is expressed as a paranormal entity, which is not

necessarily a creature. What kinds of characters are there in horror
stories of this style? Well there are Annabelle and Valak, whom
we mentioned before, or the entire Overlook Hotel, from The
Shining, which gives the feeling of having a will of its own.
The outside threat
It is about a being from elsewhere, not necessarily space, but from
a very distant place with which one should not have contact.
Unlike other types of terror, here is the feeling that evil must be
destroyed or it will put not only the protagonists at risk, but their
entire home and its inhabitants.

If we are talking about types of characters in a horror story or

movie of this style, we usually think of aliens, as in the film The
Thing, but we could also mention the shark from the eponymous
film by Steven Spielberg. It is a great marine predator that reaches
a place where it should not be: a beach full of bathers.

The deranged
He is one who has lost contact with reality and imagines things
that lead him to commit atrocities. They appear to be the victim at
first, which is typical in the psychological horror sub-genre, as in
the aforementioned The Sinister Island, or they can expose their
intentions early on, as Norman Bates does in Psycho.

The hero
On the hero's side of the story, no matter what types of terror we
want to do, we only find two possibilities. There is the one who is
strong from the beginning and can deal with evil, and the one who
gains strength and determination as the events unfold.
In zombie or post-apocalyptic films it is common to see that the
protagonist, from the start, has experience in the use of weapons.
Different is the case of the horror subgenre to which Alien belongs,
where Ellen Ripley is not able to face the xenomorph until the end.

Allies and adversaries

The former, as the name implies, are those who help the hero to
fulfill his purpose, sometimes playing a discreet role, other times
fighting side by side with him or playing the role of mentors.

For their part, the adversaries are the ones who put obstacles in
their way, not necessarily because they are bad. In types of horror
stories such as slashers, it could be the policeman who does not
believe the version of the victims and even takes them for
suspects, preventing them from fleeing or facing the real threat.