Audience For Horror Films

The intentions of a horror film are to scare its audience, and ultimately, entertain them; therefore the audience enters the cinema with a clear understanding that they will be scared. This is reflective of the audience who seemingly watch these films. It would not be stereotypically expected of an elderly lady, whose hobbies consist of knitting and cross stitch, to go and see the latest ‘Saw’ movie.  In addition to this, in order to go to the cinema, cinemas have to be available, meaning that those living in cities and towns are more accessible to these films, rather than those in rural areas, such as the countryside. Results show that overall, 48% of 18-24 year olds view horror movies, which splits in 55% of these being male and 45% being female. The makers of films have an expectation of the most common audience to see horrors are mainly adolescent males, aged between 15 and 24 living in cities and towns.

This fact is often reflected within the story lines of horrors themselves. In some cases, females are sexualised, and seen as sex objects within horrors, therefore when they are brutally murdered or tortured, males tend to enjoy this, which leads them to see further horror films. With this in mind, a clear example of this lies within the film ‘House of Wax’, where Paris Hilton’s death is one of the most intense deaths shown, and lasts a lot longer than any of the male deaths. With this in mind, it could be argued that the males tend to interact with the onscreen characters in a more intimate and sexual way, than a woman does. Women seem to interact with characters in a more sympathetic and fearful manner; often putting themselves in the shoes of the most vulnerable, which therefore creates further fear within the film.

Another mass audience which views horror films seems to be within dating couple; predominantly on first dates, rather than between married couples. This could help to understand the closes statistics between male and female viewers of horror films. Horrors may seem attractive to this audience since it gives the couple a chance to bond through fear, and therefore for the male to show his masculinity whilst the female is cowering in fear (if living up to stereotypes). With this in mind, many horror films have young couples in their film, which once again enables this audience to interact with them.

Overall, it is clear the horror films are predominantly targeted towards young people, both males and females, which is seemingly reflective in their storylines, since it allows these audience’s to interact with the characters and the fear they may entail.