What genre would this be?

[Falls Apart]

My WIP is YA, but, seeing as that's a very broad genre and more an age group than anything, I've been trying to place the subgenre but have been unable to come up with anything that seems right. Basic plot is eighteen teenagers are trapped in a hotel with three assassins that are killing one of them every hour. There are death scenes, enough violence to make it on the older end of YA (nothing gratuitous, though), some mild sexual content, and language. Definitely not romance or anything like that. I think it might be thriller, but I've heard that's an adult genre, not YA? Also, it could be horror, but it doesn't have anything supernatural, which horror usually has. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[polymath]

Sounds to me like psychological thriller. Whether young adult I couldn't say. The psychological horror premise is strong. I can't say from what's given that it's uniquely about young adult psychological horrors. There's certainly potential in the young adult marketplace for psychological thrillers.

[sierramcconnell]

Actually, it's very reminescent of a movie I saw the other day on Netflix where nine people were locked in a room and unless they could figure out why they were there, one would be killed every ten minutes. It was an adult psychological thriller.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959329/

There it is. Nine Dead.

And actually when I was searching for the title of it by 'people locked in a room' I found so many other references to movies. This has been done to death. You're going to have to work real hard to make it stand out. It's like the Saw franchise. It was so...overdrawn...

[polymath]

Astute observation, serriamcconnell.

Thrillers pose a why question of why horrors happen and rely on psychological horror more than the visceral horror of conventional horror genre. Why the spy is left out in the cold. Why the evil genius kills people. Why the mass murderer, serial killer does what he does. Why don't criminal justice practices cover all contingencies. Questions posed wanting answers so the horror can be stopped.

Mystery thrillers pose both a who and a why question. Answering one is progress often sufficient to lead up to answering the other so the horror can be stopped.

[Falls Apart]

Thanks for the advice! I think I'm going to do thriller. And I'm aware it's been done before; it's basically a tv show about that (which the MC finds cliche and boring and only agreed to act in for the money) that turns out to be real . . . long story. But half the point of the book is a deconstruction of cliches/media addiction.