What, if anything, do the monsters of horror cinema have in common, besides the fact that they are not real? They may be human—just think of Norman Bates, Leatherface, or Hannibal Lechter—but they are not real, in the sense of experientially real. They may even be non-fictional—just think of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990), a film about real-life mass murderer Henry Lee Lucas—but that still doesn't make them real (the Henry of the film is just an actor, Michael Rooker, pretending to be Henry Lee Lucas). (Carroll, 2003)
So the monsters of horror cinema are depictions of monsters, representations of monsters. But what else are they, as a group? Perhaps nothing: after all, Dracula, Jaws, the Thing (both versions), Carrie, Chucky, Freddy
So the monsters of horror cinema are depictions of monsters, representations of monsters. But what else are they, as a group? Perhaps nothing: after all, Dracula, Jaws, the Thing (both versions), Carrie, Chucky, Freddy