Audience analysis, primary research

1. Slasher Movie Certificates

2. Movie Certificate
Satan’s Little Helper 15
My Bloody Valentine 18
When a Stranger Calls 15
Black Christmas 15
Child’s Play 15
Friday 13th 18
Psycho 15
Halloween 18
I know what you did last summer 15
Final Destination 15
A bay of blood 18
Saw 18
Scream 18
Prom Night 15
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 18
The House on sorority row 18

3. Analysis
I have analysed 16 movies out of which, half had a certificate 15 and the
other 50% had an 18 certificate.
Advantages of
• There are no constraints on the
amount of gore and horror that
you can include in your movie,
there may however be limits on
graphic violence as well as sexual
acts and drug use. The more gore
a movie contains, the more tabloid
newspapers such as the Daily
Mail will write about it to inform
people which can cause a ‘moral
panic’ and therefore encourage
people to watch it.
Disadvantages of
• This would mean that you can
miss out on the under 18s who also
enjoy watching slasher movies. A
smaller audience would also mean
the budget will be smaller and
therefore you’ll spend less on
marketing which could result in the
advertising not reaching a big
enough audience.

4. Advantages of
This will allow to have a bigger
potential audience. Therefore the
budget will be higher and so will be
the marketing budget meaning the
advertising could turn out to be
more successful. This can allow to
increase the total Gross profit of the
movie.
Disadvantages of
There is a limit on how much you can
put into the movie. This can reduce the
audience as 18 movies allow more
freedom to the directors. Having the
movie as a 15, can discourage people
as nearly everyone will be able to see it
meaning that the movie might not be
gory/scary enough for some viewers.
Therefore more people prefer to watch
an 18.

5. Movie Budget Gross
Saw
Scream
Psycho
Final Destination
I know what you did last summer
The Texas chainsaw massacre
Child’s Play
Friday the 13th
Prom Night
Black Christmas
When a Stranger Calls
$1,200,000
$15,000,000
$806,947
$23,000,000
$17,000,000
$83,532
$9,000,000
$550,000
$1,600,000
$686,000
$15,000,000
$102,898,683
$161,600,000
$50,000,000
$53,302,314
$125,586,134
$30,859,000
$44,196,684
$39,754,601
$14,796,236
$4,053,000
$66,966,987

6. Questionnaire Analysis

7. How do you usually consume
film?
This indicates that I should screen my movie in many cinemas. It also
shows that DVDs could be my subsidiary market as many people
would be interested in buying those.

8. Do you prefer 2D or 3D movies?
This allows me to make a judgment on whether my audience would
prefer a 2D or 3D movie. 64% of my audience preferred a 2D movie
which allows me to keep the costs of my movie lower.

9. How often do you go to the
cinema?

10. Which one of these horror movies would
you be most likely to see?
This allows me to see what conventions these movies include to try to
include similar things in my movie to attract a bigger audience.

11. Do you buy horror film
merchandise?
This allows me to see whether my audience would like to buy merchandise.
From this graph we can see that not many would do so, which would make my
subsidiary market lower.

12. How much would you be willing
to spend on a DVD?
This would allow me to decide a price for my DVDs. Since most of my
interviewees said between £5 and £10, I would try to make my price
around that amount so that its appealing for my audience and they are
able to afford it.

13. Would you prefer to watch a 15
certificate movie, an 18 or either?
My audience do not mind whether my movie will be an 18 or a 15. Even
though a 15 movie will have a wider audience, an 18 movie can create
more controversy from tabloids which will give my movie more impetus and
give my movie more of a buzz. This is a decision which I will need to
carefully think about and weigh out the pros and cons of.

14. Select all that apply to you.
This allows me to make an estimate of how much disposable income
my audience have to purchase merchandise/DVDs or even cinema
tickets and whether I should have a student option as a high majority
of my audience are in full time education and do not have a part time
job.