Why do some critics hate horror? asks DONALD CLARKE

As a film critic, I am often asked “Why are you such a f**king idiot?” Fair enough. If you pontificate about anything in the national media, you have to expect the odd surreally misspelt e-mail or picture postcard plastered with spidery green ink.

One criticism does, however, fairly make the blood boil: the suggestion that, because I don’t like this week’s (delete where appropriate) superhero flick/ romcom/family fantasy, I must be biased against the entire (and again) superhero flick/romcom/ family fantasy genre.

With this in mind, I somewhat reluctantly take up cudgels against certain of my colleagues. Next week, a fine little horror film named Orphanwill be released into cinemas. A welcome addition to the scary-starey-child genre, Orphanfeatures a great performance from young Isabelle Fuhrman and somehow manages to pull off a truly outrageous denouement.

How have the American critics responded? Well, imagine taking a busload of frail maiden aunts to a cage-fighting event and you'll get some sense of the revulsion flooding over the republic's newsprint. The normally robust Village Voicesuggested that Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the producers, should "spend [the profits] with shame". Varietyfelt that it was "genuine trash".

The prize for most theatrical swoon, however, went to the outraged critic from the Washington Post. "It's hard to know where – and with whom – to begin when assessing the depraved, worthless piece of filth that is Orphan," Ann Hornaday bellowed, before getting over her befuddlement and deciding that the studio's "lust for money, apparently, is exceeded only by their contempt for the suckers who keep on forking it over". That clatter you just heard was Ms Hornaday crashing to the floor.

It is true that some reviewers, heeding an unconvincing furore kicked up by certain pressure groups, may be wary of praising a film in which the apparent villain is an adopted child from eastern Europe. Equally, we should not assume that, because a critic dislikes this horror film, he or she dislikes all horror films. But there is no question that this is the one genre that receives the shortest shrift from mainstream critics.

The problem is, oddly, particularly acute in the US where, aware that too many journalists switch off at the sight of fangs, distributors rarely arrange press shows for horror films. In Britain, first-class critics such as Mark Kermode and Kim Newman made their names writing about the genre, but, across the Atlantic, this sort of material is still regarded as unfit for serious consideration in grown-up publications.

One suspects that if Michael Powell released Peeping Tom– the shocker that killed the great man's career – in 2009, the likes of Ms Hornaday would once again be in need of smelling salts.

Still, time passes and, despite the scowling of the puritans, films such as Freaks, Cat Peopleand The Texas Chain Saw Massacresomehow manage to achieve classic status. Come to think of it, the genre does, perhaps, belong in the shadows, far from the disapproving stare of scowling broadsheet dowagers.