"The human mind is the scariest thing imaginable."

After conducting our audience research, using the survey we created on surveymonkey.com we found the following results...

Firstly, a lot more males took part in the survey. This was what we expected as the horror genre in general appeals more to males than it does females. From this graph, it can be seen that almost three quarters of the results we got back were from males. However, in many cases, for most of the questions the answers matched from female and male participants, with no real differences in what either gender preferred. There was one question where a difference in opinion was predicted. This was the question on horror sub-genres.

The first question we asked, was used to gauge how much of a fan the person taking the survey was. This question was designed to see how likely
our demographic is to go and see a new horror film. The question asked "How big a fan are you of the horror genre?", and presented the individual with a five point scale, ranging from not being a fan, to being a hardcore fan. The results for this question were correctly predicted by ourselves, as the middle answer proved most popular, meaning the demographic occasionally watched horror films, but watched them nonetheless.

The second question we asked was to find out the favourite subgenre within horror. Presenting the questioned with 7 possible choices ranging from a modern day gorenography, like Saw or Hostel, to a traditional slasher, like Nightmare on Elm Street. In the graphical representation of these results, female and male findings have been separated, as we thought there would be differences between the two genders in terms of their choice of horror film.

We then asked what type of monsters our audience would like to see in a horror film. Again, giving them a list of answers to choose from. This was to see if the monster we had chosen, a psychotic group of blood hungry farmers, would be popular within our target audience. The answers that could be chosen included ghosts, mutants and vampires, as well as zombies and psychopaths. When asked why people liked the psychological sub genre, many said it was because they enjoyed being wrapped up in the suspense, and tension within the atomsphere of the film. One person even said watching a psychological horror is similar to "testing yourself and how much you can watch". Another voulenteer mentioned "The human mind is the scariest thing imaginable". Thrillers and supernatural films were also popular. This was because many people liked to see the film progess and then witness how the events resolve, and a lot of answers revealed that ghosts scared a lot of our participants.

The next question was to find out where the audience would like to see a horror film set. Our film is to be set predominantly in one abandoned room/house in the countryside, however we gave other choices to see what our audience would prefer. Here you can see data showing that ghosts are a popular choice. This may be because some people believe they have seen or had experiences with ghosts, and are therefore scared of them more. As Freud said, repressed memories can come back when reminded of a past memory. This may happen to some people when watching a ghostly horror.

We also asked our audience what was the last horror film they saw, their opinions of it and what their favourite horror film is. There were many films mentioned that people had watched recently, however the reasons for liking and disliking them remained similar. Many people said they enjoyed Paranormal Activity and 28 Days Later because they had a possibility of realism. Strong characters was also a trait that was commented on a couple of times, such as the role of Lecter in Hannibal Rising, and Jenny from Eden Lake. A very wide range of films were chosen as peoples favourites, however these were there favourites because of the same reasons to why they enjoyed the last horror they had watched.

The final question was to find out what would persuade someone to see a horror film, and what they would like to see in the trailer. The answers for this questions included production values, such as certain actors, and directors. Word of mouth from friends, an impressive trailer, and reviews. Luckily for us, an impressive trailer came out as the top answer.

One of the main traits offered by those who took the survey was that a trailer gives enough of the narrative to understand what the films about, without spoiling it, and giving to much to the audience. Making them actually want to watch the 2 hour long film, as opposed to getting the whole story in the 2 minuet trailer. It was also discussed that less gore, and more realism would attract some people.