Audiences expectations and reactions to horror and vampire films Katie, Hadley, Faraimo

Typical audience of horror/vampire films Horror is most popular with teenagers and people in their twenty’s. Mostly a younger audience. Of course there are also the countless horror and vampire devoted fans, and these are found to be mostly women. This is because most women, ironically appeal to the way horror movies portray the hatred of women. Horror movies show women as mostly the victim, eye candy and prevailing heroine. In vampire films of course, the female characters are usually the victim.

Why people enjoy watching horror/vampire films Horror films relate to human natural instincts used in caveman times e.g. ‘Fight or flight’. The main reason we are attracted to watching these types of films is because they tap into our fears. The largest fear in all horror is of course ‘death’. Audiences do not consciously realize that they are attracted to this fear, or these fears are primal instincts of humans; but it is these fears that attract the audience to horror films. The audience expect to be terrified and enjoy the ‘roller coaster’ experience that horror films give, as do vampire films.

The unaware teenage audience expect fresh new vampire movies, whereas most horror fans can spot the fact that many of the superior films are being regurgitated. For example, the countless adaptations of the classic Dracula movie. Most audiences come out of vampire movies generally with a positive review of the movie. Although, critics mostly look down upon vampire films because they view them with a prejudiced eye. This is mostly because critics think that as teenagers are the popular audience of these films, they couldn’t possibly be capable of making an intelligent film choice, because they are teenagers. As said in the article, “The popularity of horror films” by Steven Casey Murray. Expectations of vampire genre films

Comparing old vampire films to new ones Within the early movie making era, the genre of horror, vampire films, focuses mainly on the fear and suspense, especially on the anticipation of the monster-vampire-which builds the fear factor. The 1922 film, Nosferratu directed by F.W Murnau had an under toned theme of romance between the vampire and the main female part of the film. Nowadays, the connection between the male and female characters-the romantic connection- is mainly focused on in vampire movies, such as Twilight, with the connection between the human and the ‘monster’.

Changes to audience of vampire films Therefore, due to these changes of more romance and action, the audiences of vampire movies have changed. As now, audiences of vampire films expect to see more romance and heavy violence and gore, due to the growing technology available to us and humans natural connection to romance.