No two movies are the same. They can have similar styles, but every movie is different. That is why movies are categorized into different genres. Every movie ever made falls under some type of genre. Some types of genre include: action, comedy, horror, drama. There are many different genres and many of them have subcategories to go along with them. However, there are films out there that don’t belong to one genre and is possible to argue that it could belong to a completely different one. The film A Simple Plan is one of those films. Though it is labeled as a drama, thriller and crime film it has the qualities to be under another genre, horror.

A Simple Plan is a movie about three people, two brothers and a friend, that stumble upon a crashed airplane. One of them enter the airplane and find a bag of money. They take the money and keep it but, because of how much money they found it makes them all paranoid about one another and this leads to their downfall. 

It may not sound like it but this movie could definitely be considered a horror movie. It is already considered a thriller but thrillers are different from horror films. Thrillers are more on the psychological side where there is more thinking about what will happen next whereas, horror films are more on the bloody and gory side with careless acts of violence. This film has both of these ideas in it. The money in this movie makes it a thriller but the killing in this movie makes it a horror film. The psychological aspect of the movie contributes to the horror aspect because it makes people think that this could happen. This might be the scariest part because if you watch a horror movie that opens with “based on a true story” then thoughts of this happening to you start to go through your head. That’s where the real horror lies, making people think about how this could happen to them.

Another thing that makes horror movies is lighting. The lighting in horror movies is mostly low key through most of the movie. In A Simple Plan there is not as much low key lighting as there are in horror movies. However, the colors in the film are very dull. All of the outfits that they wear through the movie aren’t very bright and none of the colors really pop. The colors are bland and dark. They use colors like black, brown, dark blue and other dark colors. The colors they use contribute to making the film seem darker than it is and these duller colors help to give characters a more ominous effect. An example of this is in the movie Halloween, Michael Myers wears a navy blue jumpsuit and in A Simple Plan they all wear black, navy blue or other dark colors. 

One of the most important parts of any movie, especially horror movies, are theirs scores. The music that goes along with what is happening is important because it helps you to feel more like you are the and experience what the character is feeling. The score for A Simple Plan does just that. It is not a very happy score but it also isn’t scary. When you listen to the music almost all the songs leave a feeling of uneasiness inside of you. It uses strange instruments to give you this weird feeling. Like in the opening credits, when you listen to the music you know its not scary but you feel like something bad is going to happen so it leaves you uneasy. It’s like in Halloween when Michael Myers is coming you hear his music and your heart starts racing and you know something bad is about to happen. The music is most likely one of the biggest reasons this could be considered a horror film.

A Simple Plan is labeled as a drama, crime film but it is much more. It has aspects of both horror and drama, crime genre. The psychological effect this movie has on people is huge. It makes them think about what they would do if they were in that position and that can scare some people. Although the lighting in this movie isn’t as dark as actual horror movies, it makes up for it by using dark and dull colors throughout the movie. The most important thing that could put this under the horror category is the music. The music for this movie is eerie enough to make you a little scared. This movie could definitely fall under the horror genre. There are many other reasons that this could fall under a different genre than what it was originally labeled as. This truly is a movie that can be labeled under a different genre.