horror story

American  

noun

1. a story, movie, etc., that entertains or fascinates by shocking or frightening, especially by an emphasis on bloodshed or supernatural forces.

2. Informal. a distressing experience.

   the horror stories of child abuse.

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Example Sentences

Now in his 30s, he’s a struggling actor in Hollywood, good enough to land a small part in an “American Horror Story” episode, but not clever enough to keep from slowing down the production with questions and suggestions when all he needs to do is deliver a couple of lines before a monster bites his head off.

From Los Angeles Times

The Beauty, which was adapted from a comic book by American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy, is set in the modern day and includes storylines that address some of society's current biggest talking points.

From BBC

When you’ve created as many successful shows as Mr. Murphy—“Nip/Tuck,” “Glee,” “American Horror Story,” “American Crime Story,” “Pose”—you can get away with a lot, including a series that works as a quasi-futuristic crime drama while shooting pop-cultural fish in a Waterford barrel.

From The Wall Street Journal

Mary Shelley’s horror story, which she started writing when she was 18 years old, has been reworked so often that the nature of the remorse of Victor Frankenstein—“a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe”—has been forgotten.

From The Wall Street Journal

What is magical about Ms. Olczak-Ronikier’s memoir is that it is “not a horror story,” to quote from the preface by Peter Osnos, the veteran American publisher and journalist who is, as it happens, the author’s cousin: Their grandmothers were sisters.

From The Wall Street Journal