Target Audience Research

We decided that the target audience for our film will be from 15+. We feel this is an acceptable and appropriate age for target audience, as our film is certificated 15. Although this gap is very wide, i have took into consideration the target audiences of gore horrors, and ordinary horrors, and combined the two.  On this post, i will be finding different surveys and pie charts which will demonstrate the target audience which is best suited for the genre of a horror. This will help us, as it will make us understand what different members of the public, and ages of the public are best suited for horror films.
The target audience for many gore horrors is  usually 18+. This is because there is very graphic violence, which an aggressive nature in the film, which would not be acceptable for young children. This type of information is usually displayed on the back of the DVD, or is presented on the screen before the film is displayed. E.G "the following programme contains strong violence, and sexual scenes and nature."
The usual age for people watching horror films is between 15-25. At this age, young people are starting to experience things, and start to learn about the world.  They want to try new things and learn and experience new feelings and emotions. They usually want to rush into life without being guided, and therefore seek adrenaline and a thrill. Horror movies can produce this thrill, and excite young audiences easier than older ones.
Males are tended to be the gender that horror films are mainly targeted at. Boys are normally more aggressive and violent, due to their hormones making everything seem like a competition. Horror films can give off this mood, which helps to attract the male gender of the female gender. Violence is a common attribute liked by boys, and horror films can produce this emotion.

Horror films are mainly aimed at the working class community. This is due to the levels of excitement which is gained from a horror at a cheap price. If the higher class watched a horror film, they are usually a sub genre on another genre such as action or romance. 
From researching horror films, i was able to create this pie chart to give myself a visual representation of the percentages of films that individuals at my age range (17-18) liked to watch. From observing the chart, it is clear that the most popular film was Insidious.  Insidious is a 2011 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan, and is based on a boy that becomes possessed. In our trailer, we want to do a similar thing, whereby a ordinary, innocent person becomes possessed. Seeing that people our age group liked that type of film, it seems obvious for us to do the same thing in our trailer. The least popular film was Cabin in the woods. This film centers around zombies, and is very much realted to the idea of gore and blood. this only got a percentage of 5% suggesting that the gore factor, is aimed at audiences much older, such as 25+. 


From looking at a very useful website named "Pearl and Dean", i was able to find the exact statistics for films, including the gender, age and class of the film. I looked at the film of Insidious, as this plot and basic narrative of the film is the same kind of scenario we want in our trailer.  The chart exemplifies that the gender is very close, but the male gender winning by 2%. From researching, it is clear that boys prefer horror films over girls. The main age group that the film is aimed at is 15-24 year old's, which is a similar age range that we are looking for in our trailer. Surprisingly, there is a small percentage of 8% in the 45+ section. This suggests that although horror films are primarily aimed at young adults, we cannot rule out other age groups.