What I Think a Horror Film Is

By Thomas Fenton

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege (and occasional torment) of crawling through the blood-soaked trenches of horror—writing films like Saw IV, I Spit on Your Grave 2, and The Within. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: horror is not just about jump scares or gore. It’s about truth—an emotional truth so raw that the only way to process it is to scream.

To me, a horror film is a mirror with blood on it. It shows us what we don’t want to see—about the world, about others, and most uncomfortably, about ourselves.

When I wrote Saw IV, I wasn’t thinking about how to kill characters creatively. I was thinking about consequences. Jigsaw was a philosopher with a bone saw. The real horror wasn’t the traps—it was the moral choices. What would you do to survive? What would you sacrifice? Who would you become? The answer, for most of us, is terrifying.

In I Spit on Your Grave 2, we took that concept even further—into darker, more personal territory. That film was a scream against abuse, silence, and helplessness. Some critics said it was too much. Good. Horror should be too much. It should make you squirm. It should leave a bruise. Because for many, the events in that film aren’t fiction—they’re memory. I wanted that movie to be about taking the power back, no matter the cost.

Then there's Within, where I explored possession as a metaphor for grief and trauma—how something foreign and violent can live inside us, uninvited, and slowly take over. That movie wasn’t just about a demonic force; it was about the horror of losing yourself.

So what is horror, really?

It’s not just about monsters. It’s about meaning. It’s about what we fear deep down—the dark corners of our psyche, our secrets, our guilt, our rage. It’s about putting those fears on screen in a way that’s uncomfortable, cathartic, and sometimes even beautiful.

A good horror film doesn’t just make you jump—it haunts you. It follows you home. It stays with you in the silence. And if I’ve done my job right, you’ll never look at yourself—or the world—quite the same way again.

Because that, to me, is what horror really is: the truth we’re too scared to say out loud… but still need to hear.