Political horror.
Another horror subgenre that I like is political one. Not generic dystopia, where author doesn’t understand subject past Hunger Games ripoff-level and doesn’t show anything really shocking and messed up. Like something about “What if serial killers from transgressive arthouse movies and books ruled entire country and made their depravity a base for politics and institutions?”, “What if death worship sect actually controlled entire society around theme?”, “What if some ideologies became so fucked up, that their supporters became morally comparable to literal demons?”, “What if political crisis became localised apocalypse, which can be compared to Eclipse from Berserk?”, «What if there were societies, that are feared by other countries so much for there nightmarish conditions and political system that they became treated as territories with zombie apocalypse?” and so on. Main criteria for books:
- Nothing supernatural and cataclysmic. I need to see books where there is no demons, no aliens, no analog horror entities, no lovecraftian abominations, no fantasy magic, no nuclear war or ecological collapse. The whole horror is that everything created by humans themselves, by their amorality, institutions, ideologies, ambitions and political forces.
- Detailed worldbuilding with many references to real political science and historical events.
- Books should not only describe dystopian society but also how highly it is feared by other countries, showing outside perspective.
- As much gory, violent and depraved as possible.
- Various types of political systems - something like states formed by cults, cannibalistic oligarchies, real life ideologies degraded to some disturbing and barely recognisable state, societies ruled by violent degenerates, horrifically failed attempts at building utopias, and so on.