Surreal Horror
Explore books, themes, and recommendations in Surreal Horror.
What is the Surreal Horror Subgenre?
Surreal horror is quite literally the stuff of nightmares. Logic and reason are abandoned in this subgenre for the truly bizarre and often, disturbing. Surreal horror is also the subgenre where non-threatening things such as dolls or clowns becomes objects of abject terror. This is weird fiction, but weirder and more terrifying. Hauntings, crimes, and even monsters are scary in their own right, but they make sense, and in a way, that makes them somewhat less scary. Not so in surreal horror. This is the subgenre of the unexplained and unimaginable.
Stories in surreal horror will often echo the nightmarish qualities of the tale by using disjointed and dream-like language and pacing. Because of this, surreal horror can sometimes be confused with psychological horror. The difference is that in psychological horror, the reader can be reasonably sure that the nightmarish happenings are taking place in the protagonist's head, while in surreal horror, while the reader may hope that the protagonist is dreaming all of this up, chances are, that is probably not the case.
Surreal Horror Characteristics
Level of Characterization: Surreal horror will have a high level of characterization as it is the characters that are responsible for holding the reader through the disjointed and complicated plots. Characters are the believable touchstone in the madness of surreal horror.
Level of Plot: Expect the level of plot to be high in surreal horror. There will be twists and turns, and the pacing may be odd, but surreal horror will have deep and engaging plots.
Level of Supernatural: The level of supernatural varies in surreal horror, but can be moderate to high as many of the unimaginable events or creatures in this subgenre can be explained away as supernatural.
Level of Scary: The level of scary varies in this subgenre as the dream-like qualities of the writing may take away some of the creep factor. Surreal horror is more atmospheric rather than in your face scary. So, expect the scares to be moderate.
Level of Violence: Yet another varying element in surreal horror is the level of violence.Expect there to be some violence as unimaginable horror cannot really be described without any violence, but generally violence in this subgenre is low to moderate.
Typical Setting: There are no typical settings in surreal horror. Stories can take place in cities, small towns, haunted houses, even in nightmares.
Related Horror Subgenres
Weird tales are related to surreal horror in that they are both similar in nature, though surreal horror takes the weirdness farther. Also related are supernatural and the Lovecraftian subgenres, given their close relation to weird tales. Because of the nightmarish quality of surreal horror, psychological horror could also be related to this subgenre, and given its atmospheric nature, gothic horror could also be easily related to surreal horror.