Target Audience Considerations

The target audience of psychological thriller films tends to be a 15+ rating, if not, 18+. There are however exceptions of 12 ratings in some cases. These high ratings are often given due to the excessive violence often displayed and the psychological issues that are presented, which can be disturbing for a younger audience. 

Some examples of psychological thriller films are: 

• Se7en - An 18 rating film; we will not be using this extent of violence. 
• Shutter Island - A 15 rated film.
• The ring - A 15 rated film; psychological thriller with horror elements. 

Our thriller opening will be aimed at an audience of 15 years or older. The actors will be older teenagers (18/19), which will provide a connection between the audience who will be of a similar age. Our thriller will expose the harsh realities of gang culture and will see an interesting psychological twist be presented when a guy confronts his best mate about his involvement in gang violence. The sub-genre of thriller's gives the typical target audience. For example ‘chick flick’ thrillers would target young teenage girls because they can relate to the characters' emotions. However as our thriller is general, this is why we have opted for the 15 rating. We would expect a demographic of 15-25 to watch our style of thriller. 

We are not as dependent on the gender of our target audience, as we are of the age bracket, however it is important nonetheless to create a well-rounded audience classification. Because we need to generalise, we have identified that our opening will predominately be aimed at males because of the masculine features of the film (i.e. violence and building tension.)