Musical productions have a set of genres that most mainstream audiences expect, including romance, comedy, drama, and tragedy. However, horror seems to be an outlier within that industry. That isn’t to say that horror-related musical productions don’t exist within theater. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a great example of productions with heavy horror elements. However, hardly any productions lean heavily into horror.
Unlike books, television, and film, there’s a massive degree of separation between the audience and what happens on stage. Theater doesn’t allow close-up shots of actors or the special effects that make on-screen scares believable. Musicals would have an even harder time making a pure horror story work.
However, there have been attempts at pure horror in theater. The Broadway adaptation of Paranormal Activity managed fairly well, focusing on special effects and trying to give a haunted house experience for its audience.
That doesn’t mean horror has no place in theater, even if it can’t be watched the same way in other mediums. Horror in theater works best alongside other genres, like horror comedy and horror romance, giving audiences time to invest in the story rather than trying to simply scare. This is how productions like The Phantom of the Opera have managed to retain a massive fanbase. Genres like Gothic Horror do so well in theater; gothic horror productions can be incredibly atmospheric when watched in live performances, because of their grand set pieces and foggy special effects.
