Learn 10 horror movie words
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| Whenever I'm ready. All right, begin. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Top Words. My name is Alisha. Today, we're going to be talking about ten horror movie words. These are words you can use to describe horror movies and the things that happen inside them. Ooh. That was not a horror sound. It should be more like, "Aaah." |
| “Scary.” "Scary" is maybe the most basic adjective you can use to describe a feeling of fear. Something is scary. "That movie is scary." "That dog is scary." "My aunt is scary." Not really. Sorry, Auntie. Something that is scary, "Haunted houses are scary." "That was a pretty scary movie." |
| “Creepy.” "Creepy" is different from "scary" because "creepy" is more a very, very subtle or just a feeling, a slight feeling. Usually, we say, "A place is creepy," or maybe we can say, "A person is creepy." We can talk about a creepy movie as well. The nuance of creepy is it's just a slight feeling. There's no really--you don't feel like screaming, or shouting, or crying. It's not an extreme feeling. Creepy is a feeling of uneasiness. You feel unsettled. Something is not right. If you see, maybe, a suspicious person at a station, you could say, "Oh, that person looks a little creepy," or "That person is creepy." Maybe, "Ooh, this house is creepy." Something is a little wrong. Something feels a little bit out of place or different. In another sentence, "That old house is so creepy. |
| “Eerie.” "Eerie" is very similar to "creepy." "Eerie" sounds a bit more formal than "creepy." "Eerie" is for something that's like, for example, a strange coincidence, a very mysterious coincidence. We can use that, for example, "How did she know that my mother was dead? That's eerie," or like in a movie where there's a psychic, someone who can read the future or read other people's histories or something. That's eerie. Some coincidental information that's very mysterious. We can say, "that's eerie." We can also use a mysterious place for "eerie." A forest could be very eerie. Maybe it's not scary, but, for example, the image I'm thinking of is a dark forest. Maybe there's lots of mist. If you saw the movie, “Lord of the Rings,” the scenes where they go to visit the elves in that movie, there's forest and mist, and people move through the forest very slowly. It's a very eerie feeling. Maybe, it's a little bit scary, but it's also mysterious. That's eerie. "The old forest has an eerie feeling." |
| “Grotesque.” The next word is "grotesque." "Grotesque" is a word that means lots of blood, lots of bodily violence, maybe people being chopped or animals being chopped. It's very human body or animal body--this very strong visuals of terrible things happening. That's grotesque. You might see this in video games too. If you shoot someone in a video game or you shoot a creature in a video game and it's very realistic, then we could say that it's grotesque. Something that's grotesque is very, very extreme and often violent and just very, ooh. I don't like that. I don't know. That's how I would describe it. The image like bodies, blood, guts, extreme imagery. In a sentence, "I hate grotesque films." |
| “Gory.” The next word is "gory." "Gory" is just like grotesque, really. "Grotesque" sounds a little more formal. "Gory" is a little bit more casual, I think. It's grotesque. There's lots of extreme images, but "gory" sometimes is more like you might see in a comic book, for example. If you saw the movie “Kill Bill,” for example, a lot of those scenes, you could say they're really grotesque, but I feel they're more gory. There's a lot of blood in those movies. It's somewhat like a comic book. It's not quite as, sometimes, not quite as realistic as maybe another movie. Maybe, lots of fake blood and, again, lots of violence and people dying is gory. That's how I would explain "gory." Generally, though, we can use "grotesque" and "gory" in mostly the same way, but to me, "gory" feels a little bit more like a comic book. I think that's a good example of the type of violence you would see or describe as gory. In a sentence, "Slasher movies are really gory." A slasher movie is like slash, like a bad guy, a murderer, will instant kill people. We call those slasher movies, the image is slashing someone. Bonus word: slasher movie. |
| “Horrifying.” The next word is "horrifying." Horrifying. You can see the root there is "horror." Horror. We modify that to horrifying. "It makes me horrified. That movie is horrifying." To describe your feeling, you say, "I am horrified." "That movie was horrifying." Please keep in mind that “ed,” “ing” difference here. "Horrifying," it makes you feel horror. You feel the shock and fear at the same time. You feel uneasy too. "Horror" is an extreme word. I don't use the word, "horrifying" unless something is quite a high level. You can use this for movies, yes, but you can also use this, for example, with negative news stories. If you see something on the news that's really negative or really, really shocking and sad, you can say, "Did you see the news? It was horrifying what happened." That's a really good word to use for movies and for the news. In a sentence, "The scene at the end of the movie was horrifying." |
| “Terrifying.” The next word is "terrifying." "Terrifying" is slightly different from "horrifying." Again, we have, "I feel terrified.” “That movie was terrifying." The root here is "terror." The terror comes from terror. Different from "horror" which is more like shock. "Horror" has more of a nuance of shock and unease. "Terror" makes you feel that excited feeling plus fear. Maybe, something that makes you want to run away, for example, or something that's shocking and it's really exciting in a negative way. That's terrifying, a terrifying feeling. For example, if you've been in a car accident, maybe it was a terrifying experience, or if you had any other fast-paced dangerous situation, we can say that's terrifying. In a sentence, "Horror movies these days are absolutely terrifying.” Super scary. They make you feel excited and scared at the same time. |
| “Hair-raising.” The image here is that any hair on your body like on your arm or leg or the back of your neck too, it's something is so scary that the hairs on your body raise up. We usually use this for a sound or--let's see, what else? Maybe a feeling as well. A lot of times, it's the sound of string instruments in the soundtracks of horror movies that make us feel like, "Oh, gosh. That was a hair-raising sound." Those kinds of sounds and those feelings make situations, make feelings where we feel like we could explain that with hair-raising. In a sentence, we would say, “We heard a hair-raising noise in the woods.” Another bonus word, you might get “goosebumps.” We call it “goosebumps.” Usually, it happens when you're cold. When you feel nervous or scared too, your skin might get these teeny little bumps on them, and we call those “goosebumps.” Oftentimes, “goosebumps” and hair-raising sounds, we use those two words, "goosebumps" and "hair-raising" to express similar feelings. If you hear a hair-raising noise, you could say, "Ooh, that sound was so scary, it gave me goosebumps." Goosebumps is accountable now. |
| “Bloodcurdling.” The next word is "bloodcurdling." Bloodcurdling." "Blood," being that stuff inside your body, inside your veins and arteries. Curdle. "Curdle," if any of you are interested in food, curdle is related to milk and dairy products. "Curdle" means liquid coming together in a solid. It takes time, usually, or it's an effect that happens to milk and to dairy products. Here, it's bloodcurdling. The idea is that something has such a strong effect on you that your blood curdles. It's so terrifying that it curdles your blood. This is a word that's often used to describe sounds, like a "bloodcurdling voice" or a "bloodcurdling scream," is how it's often used. In a sentence, “The monster's scream was bloodcurdling.” |
| “Unnerving.” Similar to "creepy," "unnerving" is something that feels a little wrong. It's just not quite right. Again, you can use this for a movie. A movie can be unnerving. "Unnerving" can be used to talk about any strange or incorrect feeling situation. In a sentence, "That was a really unnerving movie." Unnerve. Makes you lose your nerve. Your nerve is your confidence. Your nerve is your ability, your belief in yourself. Something which is unnerving means it takes away or it removes that feeling. Something which is strange that happens where you are, something you're seeing or experiencing. It makes you feel like, "Oh, I've lost my nerve. I've lost my confidence. It's not right. Something's not right here.” Maybe, “I can't do this after all." You could say a situation is unnerving as well. |
| That's the end. Those are 10 words that you can use to talk about horror movies. If there's a different word that you use or if you have any questions about these words, please feel free to leave us a comment below. Thanks very much for watching. We will see you again next time. Bye, bye. |
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