General audience research.

General audience research

The audience for the general horror films that are released are looking for adrenaline boosts in scary fictional or real life characters and the rush of a bloody corpse fest, which happens to be included in most horror films, luckily. 

Why do people watch these sort of films. Researchers have been identifying various horror movies as to why people love to watch these gore-filled movies, its the need for excitement and intense emotions that only these bring. Although some dramatic films can void some of these needs, violence and horror films have features that other forms of drama do not, including the portrayal of real life events, planting the thought in the viewers head that one day this could happen to them. Also, some remakes of real life stories get the viewer to think about the situation happening to them, getting them wrapped into the warp of the horror media and wanting to continuously know more.

It also came about that people rarely go to see a horror film on their own. The violence is also more appealing to males, and mainly male groups rather than female groups. They are also talked about a lot in anticipation and afterwards in film reviews and with friends, spreading the word too. Of course horror films are not to everyones taste due to the raw intensity of the blood and gore included, but it also it a key feature of the films which most horror fans love to watch and take in. 

A case study proved that males around the age of 17-30 were the main targets of the general horror audience, and mainly groups of males, or if not single males, not to single out the fact that there are still females interested in watching horror films. One of the main factors identified to the viewers was that they go with the intention of 'sensation seeking', with the wish to see destruction and annihilation of characters in the films. 

Within the cinema however, the horror genre struggles to keep up with other genres in the fight for most watched title. Sequels of films such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Batman dominate the top 10 for most watched, but it still not to say that people don't go to watch horror films at the cinema. The biggest and latest hit of a horror film that I can think of is Paranormal Activity 4, part of the Paranormal Activity set, which did reach a mind blowing $576.6 Million in worldwide ticket sales, putting horror films back on the map and challenging other genres of film to raise the stakes in their creativity and outputs. However another survey showed that 2 in 10 people who go to watch films worldwide go to watch horror films, the main contribution of the audience coming for comedy films and to see their favourite actors.