Both in Carroll's book and in class, the "necessary" components of an "art-horror" production have been made very clear: the inclusion of a monster, or a being which cannot exist according to what modern science tells us, the threatening nature of said monster, as well as the impurity of that monster. I initially was skeptical of Carroll's attempts to give defining borders to "art-horror", but I have appreciated the fact that he has stated on numerous occasions that there is a fluid boundary between what he sees as art-horror and other, related genres. Indeed, he even gives examples of some works which he would not include in art-horror because they fail to meet his requirements for the genre but which are often considered to be in the genre of "Horror", such as Psycho for example.
With this in mind, I began to think of works which actually do meet Carroll's requirements for art-horror, but which are not generally considered to belong to the horror genre. Three films which I believe fit this category well are The Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, and Zombieland (what can I say? I'm a fan of zombie movies). All three films could be described as art-horror because they contain the necessary monster (in these cases, zombies), which threaten the lives of the protagonists and are impure (in this example, mixtures of the living and the dead). However, the three films will always be associated with comedy. One could argue that these films are art-horror, but such a designation is rarely given without also labeling them as comedies or at least dark comedies.
To be fair to Carroll, two of the films I mentioned were released after his The Philosophy of Horror was published. Additionally, despite the apparent inconsistencies in Carroll's method for outlining what designates something as art-horror, I believe his system to be valuable for distinguishing art-horror from other genres. Indeed, the truly classic "horror" novels and movies fit well into his definition of art-horror, and I predict that the movies of the "horror-comedy" genre will never be considered real classics of any genre, unless horror-comedy is to be considered a separate genre altogether.
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