Horror
From Guidevines, a user-editable wiki for writersFrom Guidevines
"Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle or horrify the reader. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of an evil, or occasionally misunderstood, supernatural element into everyday human experience. Since the 1960s, any work of fiction with a morbid, gruesome, surreal, exceptionally suspenseful or frightening theme has come to be called "horror." Horror fiction often overlaps with science fiction and/or fantasy, all of which have sometimes been placed under the umbrella category speculative fiction. See also supernatural fiction." Wikipedia: Horror
Traditional horror fiction is also known in the trade more recently as supernatural suspense or supernatural thriller in order to differentiate it stuff about serial killers, sadists, etc. Editors also feel that this marketing shift reflects the readership's reluctance to be associated with/reading an old tag now both denigrated and too broad.
Certainly, the alternate name reflects the templates and paradigms of the genre: that it shall be about a supernatural, not natural, menace, and be done on the thriller/suspense template. To many writers, this clearly puts it outside the fantasy and science fiction templates. Instead, it becomes the "fantasy" to the technological thriller's "science fiction".
[edit] Markets/Publishers
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