HorrorExchange.com is built around the idea that a review should tell you just what kind of scary you're getting. Saying a movie is "terrifying" or a book is "slow" only goes so far, because horror is a huge, expansive genre. A film built on gore, a novel built on creeping dread, and a game built on being chased through the dark can all earn the word "horror" and have almost nothing else in common.
This page explains how we review and how our scores work, so you can read any review on the site and know exactly what the numbers are telling you.
Who this is for
Anyone who likes horror, from lifelong fans to people just starting to poke around. We are neither critics nor gatekeepers. We write the way we'd talk to a friend who asked, "Is this worth my Friday night?" You can read more about the people behind the site on our reviewer pages: Josh covers movies and games, and Yvonne covers books.
What we review and how we pick
We cover horror movies, books and games. New releases and older titles both get a turn, and a 1995 novel can sit next to a 2026 movie on our shelves. We pick things we're genuinely curious about. Sometimes that's a film everyone is talking about, and sometimes it's something older we never got around to.
Nobody pays us to review anything. No publisher, studio or developer buys coverage, and nobody other than us sees or editorializes a review before it goes live. The full details are in our editorial policy.
How we review
We watch, read or play every title in full before we say anything about it. No skimming, no stopping at the halfway point, no secondhand opinions.
Then we sit down and talk it through. Those conversations are where every opinion in a review comes from: what grabbed us, what dragged, which scene we couldn't stop thinking about, who we'd recommend it to and who should skip it.
After that, the reviewer writes it up and scores it. Josh writes the movie and game reviews, and Yvonne handles the book reviews. We read each other's work before it goes up to make sure it's clear, fair, accurate, and helpful to the reader.
The facet system
Facets are what we hope is a key differentiator from most reviews. Instead of squeezing a whole movie into a single star rating, we break it into the pieces we actually care about, and we score each piece separately.
Every review scores a set of facets that fit the medium:
- Movies have 13 facets, including Atmosphere, Genuine Fear/Suspense, Jump Scares, Violence and Gore, Acting, Pacing, Cinematography and Music/Soundtrack.
- Books get 8, including Prose / Writing Style, Storytelling, Character Voice, Psychological Dread, Villain Quality and Surprise Factor.
- Games get 9, including Gameplay Mechanics, Atmosphere & Sound Design, Fear Factor & Tension, Enemy/Monster Design and Replayability.
Each medium has its own guide to the full list and what each facet means: movie facets, book facets and game facets.
Why facets beat a single rating
One number can't tell you what kind of experience you're signing up for, and that is the thing you most want to know before you press play.
Take They Will Kill You, which Josh reviewed and rated 4.0 overall. Its Music/Soundtrack facet is a 5, because the sound design is a real highlight. Its Genuine Fear/Suspense facet is a 2, because the film is after a good time and not after dread. A lone 4 would hide that. The facets tell you this is a loud, bloody, fun action-horror ride and not a lights-on-all-night scary one.
Or take The Long Walk, which earned a 4.5 overall and a 2 on Jump Scares. That 2 isn't a complaint. The film simply isn't built on jump scares, and its horror comes from sustained dread and the situation itself. If jump scares are the thing you're avoiding, that facet is good news. If they're the thing you're hunting for, you now know to look elsewhere.
What the scores mean
Every facet is scored from 1 to 5, and we use half points when a score falls between two numbers.
- 1: Barely there, or it actively works against the experience.
- 2: Weak, or simply not what this title is doing.
- 3: It does the job. Competent, but it won't be why you remember the title.
- 4: Strong. This clearly adds to the experience.
- 5: A standout. This is one of the reasons to watch, read or play it.
A high score means an element is strong and well executed, and it doesn't just mean there's a lot of it. A 5 in Violence and Gore means the gore is intense and done well, not merely plentiful. A low score isn't always an insult. When a title skips an ingredient on purpose, a low score is how we tell you it isn't on the menu.
The overall rating
Every review also carries an overall rating from 0 to 5, in half-point steps. It starts from the facets: we average them and round up to the nearest half point. Then the reviewer gets the final say, because some things matter more than their share of the checklist.
Buddy is a good example. Its 13 facets average out to 4.0, but we gave it a 4.5 overall, because the way it commits to its premise adds up to more than the sum of its parts. A 5.0 is rare, and when you see one, it's deliberate and earned. Other times a title with a couple of weak facets can still be a great time.
Think of the overall rating as the answer to "how did the whole thing land?" and the facets as the explanation of why.
How to read a review
Every review has the same shape, so you can find what you need quickly:
- The write-up covers the premise, what worked, what didn't, and who we think will enjoy it. It also says who might want to skip it.
- Scoring Details is where the facets live. Each score comes with a short comment explaining it in the reviewer's own words. If a number surprises you, the comment will tell you why.
- The overall rating sits at the top, as the quick summary.
Our suggestion is to read the facets that matter most to you before you read anything else. If you love atmosphere and hate gore, you can tell in about ten seconds whether a title is your kind of thing.