Audience Research - Fears (15-19 yrs)

In order to aid my future horror trailer in being a success, I decided to do some secondary research on what people in my chosen target audience (age 15-19 years) most common fears and phobias are. This research especially is very important as if a movie of the horror genre is not based on something that a lot of people fear/current moral panics, then it becomes less likely for the audience to get emotionally connected or react in the way that we would like; making the film an un-success.  
Other than personal issues such as family, school, relationships etc the main fears and phobias that repeatedly came up in this age group are as followed:

The Fear Of:
Death/Dead things - Necrophobia 
Spiders - also known as Arachnaphobia 
Flying - also known as Aviophobia 
Enclosed Spaces - also known as Claustrophobia 
Heights - also know as Acrophobia 

I also decided to conduct my own Primary research on a number of peers at my sixth form by asking them what their biggest fears were:

From this I found that the majority of people questioned feared either supernatural beliefs such as ghosts, demons or dangerous animals such as snakes, sharks and dinosaurs. The rest of the fears mentioned were just things that could potentially cause harm such as falling from a great height. When comparing both my Primary and Secondary research It is clear to see a link as 3/5 fears listed above were either named or referenced by the individuals being interviewed. 

However, the final person to list their fear mentioned 'love' which is a more personal topic and because of this, I would find it challenging and difficult to incorporate into my trailer as it is too vague (the aspect of love they feared was not mentioned).

In carrying out this research,  I have now gained a better understanding on the different types of fears that I could play on and incorporate into my horror trailer to make it more current, attractive and appealing to my chosen age group.