Sub Genres and conventions

Cross Genre:

Of course is you can establish genre lines, then horror crosses them. When genres -- horror, fantasy, science, and speculative fiction -- start slipping into one another "slipstream."

Cutting Edge:
This term's meaning shifts -- often from person to person -- so I can really only offer what I think it means. For ME, cutting edge means that the fiction usually refuses archetypal, supernatural aspects -- unless those elements are used so originally they become antithetical to traditional horror. Cutting edge can be hard, soft, quiet, psychological, surreal, eerie, avant pop, post-modern, literary, alternative, have erotic, and sexual aspects, etc. The idea is that it is not exactly the same old thing -- even if the departure is only stylistic rather than purely thematic.

Extreme:
It's, well, extreme. It goes straight to the blood-and-guts and aims for the gross-out without hesitation. (Most GLs tell you to AVOID these things.)

Psychological Horror:
Based on the disturbed human psyche. Obviously psychos on rampages fall into this category, but it is just as often more subtle. Since the reader's perception is sometimes altered by exposure to an insane viewpoint, psychological horror can also deal with ambiguous reality and seem to be supernatural.

Quiet (or Soft) Horror:
Subtle, never visceral or too shocking, with atmosphere and mood providing the miasma of fear rather than graphic description. The opposite of "Extreme."

Supernatural:
The rules of the normal world don't apply; ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, the occult etc. Within this sub genre is an ever-growing list of sub-sub-genres -- most of which deal with vampires.

Surreal:
Not really sub-generic, it can be used just to mean unreal; strange or bizarre. Or it can be used to tie a style to the surrealist movement in art and literature that attempted to express the subconscious and move beyond accepted conventions of reality by representing the irrational imagery of dreams and bizarre juxtapositions.

Suspense (or Dark Suspense) and Thriller:
No supernatural elements, but a constant sense of threat coming from an outside menace. Add a strong investigative angle and becomes mystery more than horror. Add action and adventure to suspense and you come up with "thriller" -- except you can have "supernatural thrillers."

Visceral:
A term, not a sub-genre, that refers to earthier, more reality-based or supernatural fiction with a tendency to be "in-your-face" with descriptions of the bad stuff -- but not as extreme as Extreme.

Weird:
Can be used in several ways. "Weird fiction" is sometimes used as a synonym for horror.