2. Wells Research of Horror
Audiences
• Conducted in 2000, the experiment consisted of
12 members in each group which ranged in age
• Each group varied from:
• 16 to 25, 26 to 40, 41 to 55, 56 to 80
• Asking what horror movie they had seen first
and the most recent they had watched in order
to evaluate what each generation was interested
in and how they reacted to different genres
3. Age group Conclusions
56-80 years
(1920-1944)
Elders held an interest in horror whilst younger, rather than later on in
their life. With a fear of the dark/night, it reminded them of walking home
at night when younger. They were also scared of rats due to conditions
and breakdowns of law and order when society was fragile due to events
such as WW2 which also led to an interest in real horror.
41-55 years
(1945-1959)
Hammer films were an regarded as example of showing a dramatic use of
blood. Movies such as Psycho (1960) were considered frightening and
contemporary films showed good SFX. Additionally, contemporary horror
films such as The Exorcist (1973) were seen as too violent and terrifying.
26-40 years
(1960-1974)
This generation showed to have a slow decline of interest with the genre;
disliking the predictability of films that relied on certain conventions. They
recognised that horror was starting to offer less passive roles for women
and saw US horror was better executed than British horror.
16-25 years
(1975-1984)
Younger generations enjoyed blood and gore. Though understanding the
film was artifice, they have a strong desire to know about the production
and SFX including favouring certain directors. Unlike the previous
generation, they were engaged with other types of media in horror e.g.
Websites. Also, they loved comedic elements, chase scenes and
predictability.
4. Overall Conclusion
• The correlation with fear changes with different
generations/ages and is a result of emotional
responses and the situation of society.
• From the 1960s and onwards, people are
desensitised to explicit SFX or scenes which
contrasted from audiences from the 1920s to 1950s
which showed strong responses to iconography of
horror.
• This further implies younger audiences are
increasingly harder to shock.
• This was, however, a small experiment and is not
based upon the mass audience of horror.
5. Future of Horror Audiences
• In regards to the current generation and horror
movies such as Lights Out (2016) or Don’t
Breathe (2016) gaining popularity, it is likely that
fear is amongst what we regard as harmless and
what is unknown to the human mind.
• With a rise in the use of technology, although
audiences will continue to grow desensitised by
the horror genre, it will continue to develop as
there will still be an interest of creating fear and
having the ‘rush of adrenaline’.
6. Cohen’s Moral Panic
• Moral panics are described as either an episode, person
or group which appear and are defined as a threat to
societal values as well as law and order. (Paraphrased
from Cohen’s ‘Folk Devils and Moral Panic’, 1972).
• This is further shown when the media plays a role in
shaping social problems and increasing the level of fear
• The Classic Structure shows to be:
• Behaviours of a group in question is likely to have a negative
impact on society lead to hostility towards a group rises, and
they are seen as dangerous. A clear division forms between
"them" and "us". This slowly develops into people becoming
conscience of them as threats. The action taken is uneven to the
actual threat posed by the accused group. Finally, moral panics
are unpredictable and tend to disappear as quickly as they
appeared due to public interest or news reports changing.
7. Conclusion
• Both Wells’ and Cohen’s research display the
reactions and responses of audiences on horror
as well as the reason behind why this is.
• By using both theories to advantage, I hope to
use this in my final project to represent horror
towards a younger, desensitised audience and
create fear.
