10 Famous Movies Whose Genres Everybody Always Seems To Get Wrong
8. Arachnophobia
Mistaken Genre: Comedy/Thrill-omedy What It Actually Is: Horror This 1990 film starring Jeff Bridges and John Goodman is about a small American town that is overrun by a deadly species of spiders the standard recipe for a horror/creature film. However, prior to being released, Arachnophobia was marketed in a very curious away. Because it contained some comedic elements (and actors: Goodman was in the midst of an award-winning run as the dad on the TV sitcom Roseanne), advertisers developed a new genre for the film: a thrill-omedy combining thriller and comedy. Thrill-omedy is a cute bit of marketing-speak, but I think it undersells the movies horror elements, of which there are many. Arachnophobias spiders are nasty and deadly and theres a decent-sized body count in this movie. I certainly wouldnt sell Arachnophobia as a comedy to someone who gets jumpy viewing other creature movies like Jaws or Anaconda.
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
