Who prefers Horror?

AGE

From the table we can see that horror is generally more appealing in the younger age categories. Popularity with horror decreases as the age categories get older. The 18-24 age category is 18% higher than the 14-17 category but I predict that this is because a lot of horror movies have an 18+ certificate and so cannot be watched by people aged 14-17. For these reasons, we feel 15+ would be a good age range for our target audience as it allows for a broader audience and also fits the criteria for a 15 certificate.

GENDER

As you can see, horror is popular with both men and women but as suspected, men are more prone to consume horror than women are. From this research we feel that we do not want to prioritise a specific gender for our target audience.

Two other studies I found proved to be particularly interesting in relation to gender with horror:

STUDY 1

Zillmann, Dolf; Weaver, James B; Mundorf, Norbert, Aust, Charles F

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

 Exposed 36 male and 36 female undergraduates to a horror movie. It was found that men enjoyed the movie most in the company of a distressed woman and least in the company of a mastering woman. Women in contrast enjoyed the movie most in the company of a mastering man and least in the company of a distressed man.

STUDY 2
Krcmar and Greene (1999)
Krcmar and Greene investigated both gender and sensation seeking and found that males were more likely to prefer certain kinds of violence in media.