Difference Between Terror and Horror?

Many times in entertainment we see scary things and immediately categorize them as "horror" without really taking into account what's so scary about the movie. There are some other sub-genres to take into account, like if it's a modern day story or a Gothic one, but almost always we'll lope "horror" at the start of it. But, aren't some, if not many, of these stories actually "terror" stories? Is there even a difference to distinguish between them?
I suppose we can start by trying to define the two words at their most basic element. Horror, as defined by the Meriam-Webster website, is "a very strong feeling of fear, dread, and shock;" terror, as defined by the same source, is "a very strong feeling of fear." Not much to distinguish there. Both share the same key word: fear.

Which is rather obvious. Horror and terror are meant to serve as a means of inspiring fear in a person. You're not going to go into a horror movie looking for a good laugh...most of the time. You want to be scared, and the intent of the story is to scare you.

The first person to try and draw this distinction was Ann Radcliffe, author of The Italian, which is a Gothic story and is one of the more prominent Gothic tales. She claims that terror is the more obscure of the two, and it leaves far more to the imagination, which leads the reader/ viewer closer to "the sublime," which is a whole other topic of discussion, believe me. By contrast, horror strikes the reader/ viewer with fear, paralyzing them with it through it's atrocities.

I think we can spearhead our discussion here, with that key distinction. Terror is meant to invite people not necessarily into the world, but into the situation. Terror is the moment of dread where you don't know what's going to happen or what could happen. When your imagination takes over. Horror, on the other hand, is the big reveal. It's, essentially, a jump-scare. You are "terrified" by a jump-scare just like you aren't "horrified" by a slow moving camera panning across a dimly lit room.

Two of the best literary examples we can draw from are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Both are stylistically Gothic, but Frankenstein delves more into terror before horror while it seems that Dracula is more about the horror.

Many people forget that a key element to the original Frankenstein story is that the monster is a brutal beast but is incredibly resourceful. It's intelligent, much more so than we come to see normally. I think DC's modern version of Frankenstein's monster is more in tune with the normal beast. The monster appears quite a few times after the experiment. Dr. Frankenstein, during his personal exile, will see something on the ridges, or in a mountain. He thinks it's the monster, we think it's the monster, and thus comes that feeling of terror. When he tries to get away he's running through all of the things he could do to defend himself that he knows would be fruitless, and it builds this hopeless atmosphere of inevitability.

Dracula seems to play more toward the side of horror. The things that Dracula does, the gore that's involved with the story. It all comes as a shock because, to Jonathan, he thinks he's visiting just some count in Transylvania. The horror of what he really does, and who he really is, plays well into the story.

Horror is about what we see and terror is about what we think. In many of his scary or supernatural novels or stories, Stephen King tries to balance all of this out. Think of It as an example. In It we do get to see Pennywise (the horror) but we're unsure of what he is and what his motive is (the terror).

Films like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street are most certainly horror films because they rely on the shocks and gore that are going to be portrayed. While you may think that the latter is actually all about terror--since we're unsure if we're in dreams or reality most of the time--it's still horror because Freddy is still screwing with the characters by playing with gore or haunting images. There's still a shock more involved than a obscurity.

I'll end with two pretty clear-cut examples: "The Beast" and "Cool Air," two H.P. Lovecraft stories. The dude is a master of horror and terror and suspense in general, but both of these stories have elements that show the distinction between terror and horror. The best part about all of this is that I don't even have to tell you what those are, just know this: the endings of both stories are horror, and terror is the build-up. The winding tension that Lovecraft builds in both stories leads to a horrifying reveal. While many literary scholars will still argue that there is a clear distinction, the difference between terror and horror lies with how the two need each other.

Horror for the sake of being scary is ultimately useless. If someone jumps out at you while you're in an open field there's no need for it. Similarly, walking down a dark hallway with no payoff feels like a wasted effort. Lovecraft, creating tense, closed-in environments in both stories, plays ultimately to the reader's imagination and sense of dread before shocking them with a grotesque image or idea. Terror comes before the scare, and horror is the revulsion and shock that comes with and after it. One can exist without the other, but when it does, it's neither horrifying nor terrifying. It's just useless.


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