AUDIENCE SURVEY

To grasp a better understanding of our audience, we started by creating a digital survey. The overall aim of the survey was to analyse the attitude towards horror films, as well as see any correlations or patterns due to age and gender. In this blog post I will present my findings.

 Through this survey I wanted to see:

• people's overall attitude to horror films
• the most popular genre of horror 
• the correlation between gender and your attitude to horror
• the correlation between age and your attitude to horror
• does the gender of the protagonist affect the audience's views on the film 

We decided to present some of our findings as a news report, using the green screen we had set up. 

A more in depth analysis of the survey:

The survey was completely anonymous. We had a total of 28 participants. 24 of the participants were from the ages of 16 to 25. 1 participant was 15 and under. 3 participants were aged 36-55. This showed that respectively the views given within our survey will be based around a young age group. 16-25 is the age of the primary target audience of most horror films. 

An important factor in answering this survey was the age of the participant. 17 participants were female.  15 were female and 1 person choose to not specify. From this we learn that the results will tells us the preferences of a more female audience. 

I wanted to learn our contenders overall attitude to horror films. Here are my findings: 

It is interesting to note that the 2 participants who put not at all were female while the 2 contenders who put very much were male. So does this mean that horror is unappealable to women?

It is also interesting to note that no contenders in the age group 36-55 didn't show much interest in the genre, their answers were 1, 2 and 4.  Other than that I didn't find any patterns in the answers to this question, they were all evenly distributed. 

To further understand if female audiences are really less attracted to horror films I looked a questionnaire given to audience members leaving the theatre after viewing Halloween II. The survey covered: 

(a) the audience's desire to experience the satisfying resolutions usually provided in these films
(b) the audience's desire to see the destruction often found in these films
(c) the sensation-seeking personality traits of audience members for these films. 

It found that, on average:

• younger individuals tend to be more attracted to this scary genre
• men are more likely to be fans of horror than women
• women versus men may like different aspects of a horror experience
• women may enjoy a horror movie more when it offers a happy ending (e.g., the evil entity ends up destroyed), whereas men may enjoy a horror movie more when it is loaded with intensely terrifying acts.

 

6/7 participants who responded with never were women, however, 2/2 participants who responded weekly were also women.
 
So what is the sub genre of horror that attracts the female audience? 

An overwhelming majority voted for psychological horror as their favourite sub-genre.
 
13 of these responses were female.

The genre of slasher, which we chose to be the genre of our film opening, had an underwhelming reaction: 1 male participant chose this as their favourite genre. 

Out of the 4 participants who placed the slasher genre as their least favourite, 3 of them were female. 
This is interesting as it seems many women aren't attracted to slasher films as a genre, but when they are specifically targeted towards women they are successful at the box office, (e.g. Jennifer's Body and Pearl)

The most popular aspects of horror chosen was plot twists with 8/8 responses being female. Gore, an important aspect of slasher films was chosen by 6 participants, 4 male and 2 female. 

In this part of the survey we wanted to see audience reactions to: 

• the protagonist's appearance and gender
• how it directs the participants interest in watching the film
• how clear genre identifiers change the viewer's perception of the film. 

We asked the participants if they would find this film appealing to watch and showed them the following posters:

Despite these protagonists being female, a majority of women answered with no in response to: 

Halloween Ends (11/17) answered with no 
A Quiet Place (10/17) answered with no 

both films received the same response %

In response to The Shining, 16/28 answered with no

The majority of men and women answered with yes, which we believe to be due to it's cult following and high regard as a film. 

In response to Resident Evil Afterlife, 19/28 answered with no

The majority of women (12/17) answered with no despite the protagonist being female, but was split at 50% either way with men, perhaps due to the poster's catering for the male gaze. 

 

In response to Jennifer's Body, 

The majority of women (14/17) answered with yes, which we believe to be due to it's target female audience as well as it's cult following. However, unlike Resident Evil Afterlife, even though both posters cater towards the male gaze, only 3/10 men responded positively. 

As we were inspired by it, and our primary target audience is females aged 15-24, this was a reassuring find for us. 

 

In response to Scary Movie, 10/28 answered with no

The majority of women (12/17) answered with yes, which was interesting as only 3 women responded positively to the comedy horror sub-genre.  

In response to Shaun Of The Dead, 18/28 answered with no

The majority of women (14/17) answered with no, which we believe to be due to the film's primarily male target audience. 

We then continued our survey by asking the following statements:

• men are more likely to be fans of horror than women
• I would be more interested in watching a horror film with a female lead
• I would be more interested in watching a horror film with a male lead
• watching horror can trigger unwanted thoughts and feelings and increased levels of anxiety or panic
• traditional depictions of women within horror perpetuate violence inflicted towards women 

We allowed the participant to select; yes, no, or to some extent to test their perception of horror and it's effects.  

Only one woman and one man responded with yes, and the rest of the women were split equally between no and to some extent. 

 

The majority of women answered with yes or to some extent (11/17), which was reflected by the majority of the male responders, of which 8/10 responded positively. 

Of the respondents, the majority of women (11/17) said no, while the majority of men (7/10) said yes, showing us that our opening still has a possible secondary target audience of men. 

The majority of both men and women agreed that the horror genre can have negative effects. This tells us that the horror genre triggers negative emotions from the audience rather than positive. Is the audience searching for exposure to terrifying acts? The anticipation of those acts, can stimulate us both mentally and physically.

 

Only one man and one woman responded with no, while more men (6/10) responded with yes than women (5/17). However most women, (11/17) responded with to some extent. 

It is interesting to note that all participants that had selected gore as their favourite horror aspect replied with yes.  

In conclusion, most of our findings confirm our initial thoughts and reasonings behind the contents of the survey. However, our most interesting discoveries were:

• the negative reaction male participants had towards films we believed they would positively answer to such as Jennifer's Body and Resident Evil: Afterlife, which cater to the male gaze
• the unpopularity of the slasher genre, especially within our intended target audience of 15-24
• the popularity of the psychological horror genre in women aged 15-24, which we had predicted to be most popular within an older demographic