Stereotypical horror fans

Horror Film Target Audience Research



Males:

These two males are stereotypical of the horror franchises target audience, they are old enough to be able to view the films but young enough to be thrilled and entertained by the excessive amounts of gore and shocks present in this franchise. The average age for a horror films target audience is between 15 and 25, these two clearly represent this age demographic. A more sophisticated audience over this age range is unable to enjoy this type of film as much as they become aware of the overused cliches that the horror franchise thrives on: creepy chidren, mysterious phonecalls, running up a spiral stair case, hand on the car window etc.

They are both in full time education and if in posession of a part time job (usually in retail) would be expected to be earning around £100- £350 a month, this therefore allows them to view these horror films, as in relation to the money they make the movie fee is of little consequence.

They're like for sport, videogames, alcohol, the opposite sex, music, guns and pop culture reinforce the ideas that they would be interested in viewing horror films as horrors challenge the stereotypes of teenagers in particular for example: the jock type character will always die, at some point there will be a party full of alcohol half-naked girls and loud music, inevitably any character that has or is presumed to have had sex during the course of the film will usually meet an untimely demise. This use of familiar themes helps to create characters and situations the target audience can relate to therefore making the reality of the horror film and it's thrill factor more potent.

Satirical horror films (the scream franchise in particular) make their characters aware of real life events and these horror cliches. These characters are usually are depicted as the same age as those expected to watch the film. All these things that the teenager likes are placed in the film as to promote their interest in the gore-fest.

Producers use the young adults awareness of current trends to increase interest in the film, trailers for instance may utilize a popular track in the current charts or have characters clothed in the latest fashion or talk about popular shops e.g. HMV, Hollister, JJB etc.

The target audience's dislikes feature just as heavily in horror films as their interests do, however they are used in a different way, it can be generalised to the following statement:

Horror is about making the familiar scary, the comfortable frightening and in doing so reducing the negativity surrounding the audience's pet hates by making the on-screen characters safer in scenes with those negative elements assosciated with them. By doing this Horror opens up the appearance vs reality debate to it's viewers and allows them to take a wider look at the world (if they are able to see past the excessive gore and plethora of thrills that is). For the male part of the Horror world this involves things such as shopping, Soap opera's, ballet, theatre, classical music etc.

Females:

As the horror franchise has evolved so too has it's target audience, tradditionally a genre reserved for the male sex due to the heavy stereotyping and opressive nature towards women in the films. This was a result of most female characters in films having one of two roles, the damsel in distress incapable of saving herself and relying on the aid of the male characters to survive who is overly sexualised and punished for having sex in the space of the film by death. The tradditional second role of a woman in a horror film is that of the antagonist utilizing the target audience's (males) fear of the power women are able to have over them. Either way the genre utilizes the use of females in an extremely exploitive manner with films like "Dracula" and "Halloween" typifying this viewpoint.

More recently this opression has seen a decline in the franchise with films such as "A Nightmare On Elm Street", "Scream" and "The Shining" with the woman moving from weakness to strength and promiscuity to intelligence, ultimately ending with them defeating a stereotypical male villain.

Like their male counterparts, these teenage girls will be in possession of roughly £100-£350 a month, they will also have a good idea of what is popular and fashionable; clothing, activities, celebrities etc. Clever movie makers will use this to their advantage by enlisting these elements in their production, perhaps most important of all would be enlisting one of the currently popular male actors to attract the female interest.

Even though horror has evolved to cater to the female audience some films still follow the traditional formula in regards to womens roles in the feature. This is done as Directors recognise the current culture within women's society to harbour jealousy and ill will towards one another, this craving to see their fellow women get what they deserve is fulfilled by the classic horror mould and so it continues to be a staple in modern cinema.

Overview:

Society's judgement on what a horror fan should look and act like has been fine tuned over the years and can now be categorized by the following twelve things:

(taken from http://boardreader.com/thread/Stereotypical_horror_fan_c65fX30mxwd.html)

1. Wears A LOT of black clothes

2. Listens to hardcore heavy metal and screamo and grunge

3. Tons of horror movie and rock band posters

4. Wears eye make-up for some mysterious reason

5. Secretly likes torture p0rn

6. Knows how to play guitar (acoustic and electric)

7. Is atheist

8. Hairy

9. Deep voice

10. Hates sport and excercise

11. Hates disney

12. Loves thinking about death and destruction

While some of these may be an extreme they are all accurate of the way society thinks a harcore horror fan should be like. It is presumably views like this that influence the content producers and directors insert into their Horror movies, and as the stereotype changes the content changes so as to keep itself relevant to the target audience.