Research about horror film genre

1. Audience Quantitative
research & analysis

2. • The majority of my responses have been from the 13-18 are group. This is
beneficial as this is the age of my genres target audience. However, the
input from the other age groups enables me to see a slightly wider range of
responses and this enables me to appeal to a wider audience when
completing my media production.

3. • The gender question enables me to assess whether or not men and women
have different opinions of the horror genre. As we can see from this result
there is a fairly even balance between men and women. From this result I
have found out that the opinions of men and women are similar however as I
do find out later in the questionnaire, more women feel that there are some
unacceptable things to see in a horror film whereas more men find anything
acceptable.

4. • Thankfully many of my respondents said they do enjoy watching horror films,
from this I can take that my respondents answers are more reliable and
therefore I will benefit more from the responses they give.

5. • These results suggest that my target audience prefer a fast paced opening.
This has helped me as I originally thought that a slower opening would enable
me to integrate a more sinister feel therefore aiding my horror/thriller genre.
The ‘other’ responses said ‘either’ this would support my original opinion
however considering that 75% of my target audience prefer fast paces I will
make sure that when I film I will take enough shots from enough angles to
make the opening fast and dramatic.

6. • The overall opinion of what scares people most from my selection is darkness.
From this result I will conduct my production at night or dusk to night. Also from
this question I gathered that my target audience found masks scary.
Previously, I had not considered implementing masks in my production
however from this result I may have so reconsider this. The ‘other’ responses
suggested that sound both non-diegetic and diegetic sound play an
important role and therefore I will have to choose this carefully in order to
create the correct tension and drama.

7. • This result was difficult to analyse as they varied much more than the previous
ones. The main two preferred sub genres of Horror are comedy and Slasher.
From this I am considering creating a sense of something (maybe a person in
the mind of the main character) having an influence over my character.
Creating comedy will be challenging as it is as much to do with the delivery as
it is the comedic script. In addition, finding a suitable actor for the part may
be to difficult.

8. • The results for this question show that more people wouldn’t find anything
inappropriate in a horror film. However this was a small majority. From the
people that answered ‘no’ to this question those that said a reason suggest
that it is mainly due to modern day horror movies not being afraid to put
anything in their films. On the other hand, those that said ‘yes’, said they
would find anything happening to children inappropriate. Overall in my
opinion I believe horror film creators have maybe pushed the boundaries of
horror to far to an extent however I also believe that improvements in CGI in
horror films have enhanced and improved the horror genre massively. The
conclusions that I have made from this are that if created to a certain
standard, the events of my production do not affect my audience negatively.

9. • The most common favourite horror film from my survey was chainsaw
massacre whereas the least favourite from my responses was the saw films.
From this I can take that gore does not appeal to my audience to the extent
that is shown in Saw. The quite dated Texas Chainsaw Massacre was made in
1974 this means that the techniques used have aged well as the majority of
my audience believe it is their favourite. Therefore I will analyse this text in
order to see how the film begins and to see if I could improve my production
from watching the film.

10. • I asked this question as I believed that a trailer to a film needs to have a similar
impact on the audience as the opening to a film. The answers were close
however I can see a trend in that my respondents believe that fast editing is
key in creating suspense and making the audience want to see on. Some
people answered with a good soundtrack, from this I have learnt that the
soundtracks that I use have more of an impact upon the audience that I first
believed. Those that said ‘other’ suggested that a good insight to how the film
will continue without revealing too much. I will need to implement this into my
production to keep my audience interested.