The Intended Audience For Horror Films

  Horror films tend to attract a slightly younger audience, predominantly under 25s. It is said that roughly 42% of horror audiences are women, with 58% being men. Horror films tend to intertwine with thrillers in the way that viewers seek out a certain thrill/scare by diving into a world which isn’t their own. Younger audiences tend to be more prone to seeking out this feeling, hence why horrors don’t necessarily appeal to elders.  The general intention for a horror film is for the audience to feel scared and feel a sense of panic. These films aim to portray our worst fears in order for us to believe in the story and the horror involved.

“In a study of horror films and female stereotyped behavior, Zillmann and Weaver (1996) established that “girls and female adolescents [in horror films] who are witnessed displaying fearfulness and protective need in the face of terror on the screen are more favorably evaluated by male and female peers and non-peers than their counterparts who are witnessed displaying no distress” (p. 87). This display of fear is merely one example of feminine stereotyping in that viewers expect that females will remain afraid and helpless.”

There are many narrative conventions to follow in a horror film, the first one being the extensive use of narrative enigmas. These unexplained events and occurrences work best in paranormal and psychological horrors as they leave the audience feeling puzzled and confused but make them want to seek out the answer to the unexplained. These sorts of narratives involve the audience and encourage them to be an active audience. Clear binary oppositions are also used to seal the narrative. The most common one in a horror film would be good vs evil. Finally the use of a three act narrative structure in horror films is usually prominent, which makes the narrative structure appear fairly predictable. The three act structure is very similar to Todorov’s equilibrium theory. The first stage in the three act structure is setup, here the main characters are introduced and the dramatic premise and dramatic situation are introduced. The second part is confrontation, this is where the main drama happens and the obstacles to the main characters are introduced. The third and final stage is resolution, here the story wraps up, evil is fought off and the equilibrium is restored.