horror

Who doesn't love a good horror story? Authors like Stephen King have made a very nice living by scaring readers and moviegoers out of their wits. Horror, in fact, has one of the most avidly devoted fanbases you'll find anywhere on the blogosphere.

Horror also covers a surprisingly wide spectrum of styles, ranging from creepy, psychological thrillers to all-out splatterfests where little, if anything, is left to the imagination in the way of guts and gore.

In the seventies, the horror bar was significantly raised with the release of The Exorcist, a film which covered demonic possession so graphically that many parents forbade their children to see the film. By the late seventies and early eighties, horror had spawned a new sub-genre of "slasher" films like the Halloween and Friday The 13th series, which featured maniacal killers picking off young sex-crazed teenagers one by one.

The Nightmare On Elm Street series took this to a borderline comical level with the introduction of Freddie Krueger and his knife-wielding gloved fingertips. More recently, films like Saw and Hostel have upped the gore factor to such a degree some critics have labeled them as "torture-porn."

On the blogosphere, you'll find horror fans at sites like the Horror Blog and Horrors Not Dead.