How do some consider this a horror movie???

It's not a horror movie in the classic mold but it certainly creeped me - and, evidently, many others - out to the point where I'd definitely regard it as such. The exact reasons as to why... for me, in a general way, it's just a sense of eerie, not-quite-right uncanniness that permeates beneath the surface of the film. Things feel off by a few inches and, particularly when watching it alone late at night, this sensation builds and builds and builds.

I don't think it's entirely in the eye of us beholders, either. Aside from the overall premise (which I find to be incredibly creepy unto itself), there are moments that, to me, feel very much tweaked to scare the audience. The girls wandering around hanging rock, for example, the intense rumble of the soundtrack, the cavernous passages, not to mention the 'faces' in the rock itself - creepy. Edith's big scream, hell, even that moment towards the end where it's just a series of still frames flitting between various ornaments in Appleyard's office accompanied by that darn rumbling soundtrack again - these, to me, are 'scares' in sufficient quantity to warrant calling the film horror, amongst many other things.

I agree, have also seen only the Director's Cut, Its NOT a horror film in any way IMO.

" Look, there's two women fuc*ing a polar bear!" - Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas 1998

Horror is notoriously hard to define. But I'd say PAHR is indeed horror because it has to do with the unexplained and (possibly) the paranormal. Also, it's frightening. At least to some. Not in the way [REC] is frightening, certainly, but frightening in its own delicately spooky way.


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I don't come from hell. I came from the forest.

Well I'd say in return, how is it not considered horror?

I think many people have trouble disassociating horror from Friday The 13TH and the like. Horror is much more varied than that, perhaps the genre with the most subgenres.

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I saw this film as a 6 year old, at an open-air, moonlight screening at Hanging Rock, *beep* terrifying! Haven't been able to rewatch it for fear of disappointment.

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I saw this film for a 3rd time last night, and I was rather unsettled. The first time I watched it over this past summer, I was unsure of what I thought of it, apart from the darkness of the last several minutes.

The second time I watched it, back in January, I found the suspense and anticipation of watching the events unfold to be nearly unbearable.

Last night when I watched it with my partner I enjoyed it once again. We discussed the film for a bit after but then went on to other things. However, I went to bed earlier and was in our upstairs on my own. for some reason i had a tremendous sense of unease. I felt less than secure. And as I continued to doze in and out, I kept seeing the film in some way or another; each time making it more difficult to fall back to sleep.

I think this film could be considered horror. Perhaps not for what takes place on screen but the feelings it leaves us with. To me, good horror stays with you long after a film ends, and for me, that is really where the horror of PAHR begins. It is truly haunting ans unshakably mysterious. A film that makes me jump is not one that I find scary because those films are very often over as the credits begin to roll. A film like this follows you around and creeps back into your mind from time to time reminding you that it is still there. While it may not posses the elements of terror as a slasher film might, this, to me, is horror.