Word.ws English Dictionary

quiet horror

quiet horror noun: a subgenre of horror and psychological horror that doesn't rely on explicit, graphic elements or cheap thrills (e.g. jumpscares, gore, shock tactics etc.); but relies on atmosphere, subtlety, uncanniness and slow-burning tension.

Noun

quiet horror (plural not attested)

  1. (no plural) A subgenre of horror and psychological horror that doesn't rely on explicit, graphic elements or cheap thrills (e.g. jumpscares, gore, shock tactics etc.); but relies on atmosphere, subtlety, uncanniness and slow-burning tension.
    • […] Instead, we’re given an ending that tears the threadbare fabric of the movie apart even more — quiet horror at its finest. […]2023 January 10, K. Austin Collins, “Inside 'Skinamarink': The $15,000 Horror Movie That's Captivated TikTok”, in Rolling Stone, archived from the original on 28 Jun 2023

Origin of quiet horror

Either named after Stanley Ellin's book of same name or coined by Charles L. Grant.

Questions about quiet horror

What does quiet horror mean?
Quiet horror means a subgenre of horror and psychological horror that doesn't rely on explicit, graphic elements or cheap thrills (e.g. jumpscares, gore, shock tactics etc.); but relies on atmosphere, subtlety, uncanniness and slow-burning tension.
What part of speech is quiet horror?
Quiet horror is a noun.

Words near quiet horror in the dictionary

  1. quiet firing
  2. quiet fox
  3. quiet fox gesture
  4. quiet hands
  5. quiet hiring
  6. quiet horror
  7. quiet luxuries
  8. quiet luxury
  9. quiet move
  10. quiet moves
  11. quiet party

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quiet horror (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “quiet horror.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quiet_horror. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.