Horror Audience Research

Horror films are very popular amongst males and under 25. As I began researching and looking at statistics on demographics and this has been collected by Val Morgan cinema network. I wanted to find out what type of  aiming my film trailer at.

I also researched psycho-graphics as I wanted to explore the target audience more, and to have a better understanding of my own target audience. Also psycho-graphics divides the market based on social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics. Psycho-graphics is more broad then demographics as it allows me to understand the behaviours of the audience and this would help me create my trailer as I know what they want to see. Also it would help me create my Film Magazine and Film Poster. I believe that 'Explorers' in the table below relates the most to horror films as they enjoy adventures and they are thrill seekers and they tend to be younger people. 

I have completed by secondary research for Horror Audience research but now I have also done primary research and by doing this I created an online survey on Survey Monkey. It was very useful as I knew what the public thought about horror films

The results survey monkey gave me was that more males responded to my survey.

(Q1 What is your genre)

As I found out in my secondary research, males tend to enjoy watching horror films more, and they were excited to take this survey as they felt this appealed to them.

The results for the second question, a variety of both genders said they watched horror films 'Extremely Often' and only a few replied with 'Often'( Q2 How Often do you watch horror films) 

For my third question, many people replied with 'death'. Therefore they wanted to see deaths and they liked it when the killer was unknown or was masked. (Q3 What do you like most about horror films) 

The responses from the survey helped me a lot and it was very useful as I got to find out how my audience felt about horror films. This would influence my script and the plot as I now know what they want to see. 

Audience Theory

I have also considered audience theory's as it may help with my film trailer. 

The hypodermic needle is seen in many mainstream movies. For example 

As the hypodermic needle suggests that the audience are easily manipulated by the creator of the media product. The message that the media wants is 'injected' into the audience's mind's .This could be one of the many reasons why horror films are rated as 18 or 15 as younger people are more easily influence. 

However Users and Gratification relates the most to horror as it focus's on how people use the media rather then the media effecting the audience. These needs include: Escapism, Surveillance, Personal Identity and Personal Relationships. Escapism is the most common out of the four, as the audience are 'escaping' from reality and putting themselves in the position of the characters. This is common in horror films as the audience may want to position themselves as the antagonist as they are unlikely to be a killer in reality.