I'll agree it did a fine job of having me think about illness and death at a young age. Those are the sorts of problems we awaken into and develop over our lives, and I think your intuition has merit here, /nod. I've noticed over the years more about it that I think counts as horror. Here's what I think [slow loading].
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was scary when I was 5, and, to this day, I still think it's a horror film. I find very few people who agree with me on the matter.