Now at the end of October, getting closer to Halloween day, horror movies are part of many peoples holiday traditions. In this school where there are so many students, do they all enjoy the same horror movies or is age an important factor? FM also has many faculty members. What movies do they enjoy? Is it the same as the students?
One of the main faculty members is Mr. Durkee, the new principal at FM. He said, “I’m not a fan of horror movies in general and it’s been a very long time since I saw one.” However, he does like The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense, saying these are probably his favorite scary movies. He also enjoys some thriller films like the Hannibal trilogy, especially Silence of the Lambs.
Interviewed teachers gave varying answers. Among the ones born in the 60s and early 70s, none of them enjoy slasher type movies and many answered that their favorites were more among the lines of horror films with a purpose (like Get Out with a very important message about racism). Among the teachers born in the mid-70s to 80s, about half of them did not like the horror genre at all and the other half were slasher fans. Some even said that they do not like horror movies that have a situation which could happen in real life.
Students from different grades gave similar and different responses. 62.5% of 9th graders answered that they like to watch horror movies while 37.5% responded that they do not. The movie with the most votes was Scream with 25%, followed by Train to Busan, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (each with 12.5%). In the sophomore class, 64.3% like scary movies and 35.7% do not. Scream was also the most voted film with a total of 21.4% of the responses. Halloween came in second place with 14.3%.
11th grade had the least amount of people who like horror films (only 57.8% answered that they do). First place was tied between five movies: Smile, Get Out, Midsommar, Halloween and Hereditary. Each of them had 6.7% of the answers. Getting slightly away from the horror genre, many juniors also said they liked the thrillers Seven and Silence of the Lambs.
The senior class is the one with the most horror fans. A whopping 80% responded that they like the genre while only 20% don’t. It (2017) is 12th’s grade favorite scary movie, getting 15% of responses. The original Saw came in second place with 10%.
Freshmen and sophomores had a very similar percentage of horror fans and their favorite movies were almost the same (and within the same subgenre: classic slashers). Juniors had the lowest number of people who enjoy scary movies, their favorites varying between slashers and psychological horror films, and seniors had the biggest number.
Among responses from all classes added together, the movie with the most votes was Scream with 9.2%. Halloween came in second place with 6.9%. Third place was tied between Get Out, Hereditary and It, each having 4.6%.
In the end, age is indeed an important factor. Older teachers seem to not be slasher fans while younger teachers are the opposite and do not enjoy believable horror movies. Most younger students like slashers and older students prefer psychological horror. But in the end, slasher films still stand as the most popular among all age groups, showing how the genre is continually enjoyed by all generations.
