Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

6-1984

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Jack B. Haskins

Committee Members

Mark Miller, Paul G. Ashdown, Herbert H. Howard, Lorayne Lester

Abstract

More than any other movie genre, horror movies have content which is noticeably pessimistic, tension-arousing, fear-inducing, threatening, and unpleasant. Yet, the genre has historically been an important part of the film industry and has consistently boasted commercial success. The purpose of this study was to discover clues behind audience support of this type of film. The Sensation-seeking theory of Marvin Zuckerman was applied as an explanation for audience interest in horror movies. A sample of Knoxville, Tennessee adults were surveyed in a mail questionnaire, which included measures of horror movie interest, measures of movie-going habits, measures of attitudes toward occult subjects, and Zuckerman's (1979) measure of the Sensation-seeking trait. Findings show that subjects who had a high interest in watching horror movies also scored higher on the sensation-seeking scale. In addition, subjects who indicated a greater preoccupation with thoughts about mortality, a greater belief in spirits and aliens, and were less religiously orthodox also tended to be more interested in watching horror movies. Preoccupation with death, belief in spirits, and belief in aliens were also found to be positively correlated with Sensation-seeking.

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