Psychographic question answers
Have you experienced any
supernatural event?
Over half of the people who I
asked to fill out my questionnaire have said that they had either experienced
or hear about supernatural events happens to their friends or family. A
majority of the encounters are to do with hearing footsteps, doors slamming or
things being knocked over; some of them are to do with children. Only one
person claimed to have seen their deceased uncle.
Someone talked about how they
visited Bodmin Gool and her son started to scream hysterically when they
entered one room and then calmed down instantly when they left the room. Three
of them talk about how either them or siblings used to say strange things when
they were children. She said that she used to have an “imaginary friend” who
would tell her facts about World War 2 and she’d then recite them and they’d be
correct. She also said that at the age of 3 her “imaginary friend” would tell
her complex words that she’d use when she spoke and she understood what they
meant. The 3rd story about children was a woman who said that her
younger sister would come out with weird statements. She walked into the room
and said “aunt Lucy’s dead” and they thought nothing of it, since she wasn’t,
then the next day they got a phone call saying that she had passed away. She
said that when she was a child her mum was driving and nearly hit a car at a
junction. A few weeks later, at the same junction, she was in the car with her
mum and said “What out for the car mummy!” and there weren’t any other cars
there.
Another story was that this
woman’s sister couldn’t sleep so she came into bed with her and her younger
sister kept saying “who’s the lady in the pink dress” and pointing at the end
of the bed.
Most of these are about things
happening in their own homes, a few of them being them now living in a house
where the previous owner had died and now doors slam, things fall, lights
flicker, and they can hear footsteps.
What are you biggest fears?
Some people had some odd fears
e.g. Polystyrene, windows on upper floors, different textures, things with
holes in. A couple were about ghosts and Ouija boards. A few fears where more
emotional fears; one being someone not wanting to outlive their own children,
loosing control, saying goodbye. There were the common fears that a lot of
people had: clowns, the unknown, spiders, and cockroaches.
I think that the people who had
fears linked to their emotions had more a more genuine fear because they went
in depth about them, rather than those who just wrote down “spiders.” Those who
did I think that there fears are more about being disgusted by something rather
than having a fear of it. Seeing something that has a usual texture is more
about them being shocked by it rather than being fearful of it. I can take the
general fears and use them in my poster campaign ideas, but the ones that are
emotional I can base the idea of the film around them.
What makes a horror film poster
effective? (Other box selected and discussed)
People who had selected the other
box wanted to see something that’s based on real life events/ new threats/ not
over doing the jumps scare factor. A couple of people want posters to have a
sense of mystery to them and seeing the monster emerging or seeing something
surreal.
When you watch a supernatural
horror film what do you expect?
Lots of people liked the
conventions of supernatural horror films; gore, playing on the real world, jump
scares, plot twists, and some people said that they enjoy them having bad
endings, one person said that they liked the archetype of a blond bimbo in
horror films. Suspense was the biggest expectation for supernatural horror
films and seeing disturbing images. I think this is because, from my secondary
research, people want to see and experience the things that they don’t have/
try to avoid in their own persona lives.
Analysis of demographic questions
Lots of people fell into the age
grouping of 16-18 and they were the people who most commonly watch horror
films, in my focus group I will ask them if they tend to watch 15 rated horror
or 18 rated; because I think that teenagers have a fascination of graphic
horror films and I’d like to hear about it in more depth. My questionnaire was
more female dominant and most of the males who answered it didn’t watch horror
films as much. Which I find interesting because stereotypically you’d think
that males would want to watch horror films more. For my focus group I will chose people who are between the ages 16-18 because I feel that it's a more appropriate age group for horror films.
The most favoured sub-genres of
horror films were gore and supernatural. I believe this could be because
they’re the two that are very far from reality, yet the two genres play on real
life events.
A majority of people used to tell
ghost stories when they were teenagers. The ones they told were mostly about
real life events and the most common one heard was Bloody Mary and he
disappearing Hitchhiker. These two ghost stories are based in the real world
and are to do with seeing a ghost. Rather than the stories that were about a
human being the antagonist, e.g Humans can lick too and the clown statue. From
my secondary research and this questionnaire people like to hear stories about
real life events and most supernatural horror films are about true events that
have happened.
People said that the poster does
make an impact on whether they’d see the film or not, and the most common thing
they thought made it effective was low lighting. Everything else was about
level. Lots of people liked to see a bit of gore or the monster. Out of the two
posters I showed them, Poltergeist and Sinister, people said that they would
rather see Sinister. Which shows that people do like to see a bit of gore in
the poster, maybe this is because it’s clearer that it’s a horror film and they
know what they’re going to see. I chose two posters that were opposites to see
if people would go for the classic gore poster for a horror film or the one
that suggested horror and had a child in it.
