The term 'genre movie'?

[Done Deal Pro]

Many people in this town refer to sci-fi, horror and fantasy films, along with action, crime and maybe even westerns too on occasion, as genre films. Yes, every film falls into some genre, thus it's kind of an odd way to group certain "specialty" or daresay niche films together, but that's how it goes many times when talking with people about projects.

Maybe another way of looking at is a script or film which falls into a clearly defined milieu. Drama and comedy are broad and don't have any real specific elements to them that would set them apart from other films as the previously mentioned genres would, relatively speaking. An audience expects certain key elements, formulas and "rules" to exist in a specific genre project and in most cases can quickly name what they are.

It's a short hand that's not perfect and probably gets thrown around a bit more than it should be.