Target Audience For The Horror Genre (GENERAL & INDEPENDENT)

Making sure you are correctly targeting the audience who will want to watch your film the most, is very important in the world of film and film advertising. If you are not catering for the niche horror audience, your film won't do well in cinemas. The target audience for horror films seems to be males (almost 55% of those who see horror films are male, according to audiencetargeting.com), aged between 15 and 25 which could be why many horror movies tend to focus on characters who are around those ages, for example all the teen slasher films such as Nightmare On Elm Street. There are issues regarding those in that age range though because in this day and age, new advances in technology due to the internet and the pirate-movie industry mean many teenagers and young adults would rather pay nothing to illegally download films online than go to the cinema, so film producers have to work extra hard to make seeing the film in Cinema 'unmissable'. This means making sure there is a Unique Selling Point to draw the audience in, and make them believe this isn't just another run-of-the-mill horror film but something that is different, without being completely off the mark.

We conducted research among our peers to find out their opinions on horror films and how to make people want to see our film. 21 people were asked, 12 of whom were female and 9 male, and all were between 14 and 23. When asked which genres of horror they enjoyed, the highest ratings were given to Paranormal/Supernatural, Comedy and Zombie horror, however, the genre we are aiming for Satanic also rated quite highly.

We found that most people do not like continuous voice overs on Horror trailers but some explained that lines of dialogue that explain what's happening partially are useful.





Many of the participants asked said they enjoyed horror films for the suspenseful parts.

We found a pretty even split between those who like gory parts and those who don't.








Overall, I think this individual research has given us a much better idea of what to include in our trailer or not.