Target Audience

Insanitarium is for an 18 horror movie and its narrative about a psychotic doctor would have lots of  body horror. This means my target audience must be adults over the age of 17. From researching online I found that thriller horrors have a gender audience split of 50/50 but horrors focusing more on gore and violence (for example The Hills Have Eyes (2004)) have a gender split of 70/30 to men. As my trailer has a lot of body horror my trailer is aimed slightly more at men. My media class are currently studying horror films so can all be classed as horror fans. If my trailer appeals to my class then it will appeal to other horror fan audiences.

The way I researched my target audience was by firstly creating a quick poster in class. The film my class poster was based on was a low budget gore fest and was rated a success. Death Harvester came second in class with nine votes and this supports that a body horror heavy film would be appropriate. We also watched 10 horror trailers in class and discussed what we did and didn’t like. Some had obvious problems, like the cheesy voiceover in Toxic Avenger, but some were much better. I have three of these reviews on my blog, and the class' feedback to the trailer told me what to and what not to include. Finally with the focus group trailer viewing I could see first hand what my audience thought of my trailer and could change the aspects that needed changing.

The problem with my audience research is that it's hard to appeal to a mass horror group. Horror films can be categorized into several sub genres and some fans like thriller horrors but not ‘torture porn’ horrors. Horror fans are also often "individuals" in psychographic groupings, so they are much harded to target. However I hoped with the success of Death Harvester and the success of the focus group for Insanitarium would all mean our trailer could be successful in the real world.