Paul Wells Research Into Horror

Paul Wells (2000) did research into horror. He conducted a small focus group study with 12 members from 4 different age groups.

These include:
- 16-25 years old (films between 1975-1984)
- 26-40 years old (films between 1960-1974)
- 41-55 years old (films between 1945-1959)
- 56-80 years old (films between 1920-1944)

The types of he questions he asked them included which was their earliest horror film and the most recent that they had seen.

From his findings, he discovered that being frightened changes with age and relates to broader factors which affects emotional responses. Those who have seen horror films between 1970-1990 were more anaesthetised to explicit special effects, but 'monster' films from the 1920s/1930s reported a very strong response to images and iconography of horror, amongst the participants. This shows that young audiences are aware of artificiality and are harder to shock.

Limitations of the study include the number of participants as it is a very small sample so it is difficult to draw conclusions from it.

In order to see which age group enjoys horror the most and which is easily frightened, I decided to conduct my own horror questionnaire.