Scary Movie Trash

With Halloween just a little over a month away, spooky season has arrived. This is the time of year for all things creepy and a new survey reveals how Americans feel about scary movies.

The poll of 2-thousand U.S. adults with streaming subscriptions finds 60% say they like spooky movies that are eerie and sinister, while 27% prefer truly scary movies that are designed to frighten people. It seems those preferences for “spooky” or “scary” films also influence other aspects of their lives.

• Spooky content lovers are more likely to form a new friendship over a shared interest in the genre (57%), compared to scary content lovers (39%).
• While 51% of all respondents are fans of true crime, fans of both spooky and scary content agree that fictional horror movies and shows are scarier than true crime content.
• When watching as a couple, 63% prefer spooky movies to scary ones (53%).

The survey also finds:

• When it comes to defining eras of horror movies, anything pre-1988 is considered a “classic,” while anything from 1995 forward is considered “modern.”
• Loving horror flicks seems to be a family tradition, as 68% of parents polled say their kid has asked to watch a scary movie, and two-thirds of parents say they’re fine with it, as long as they’re around.
• Three-quarters of respondents were 13 or younger when they watched their first horror movie and 53% say they did it without getting their parent’s permission first.
• Those films left a lasting impression, as 48% still have adverse, visceral reactions to their first horror movie. Looking back, 47% now admit they were probably too young to be watching those movies at the time.
• The top iconic family-friendly Halloween movies are “Coraline” (40%), “Casper” (37%), “Ghostbusters” (37%), “Corpse Bride” (35%), “Beetlejuice” (28%), “Halloweentown” (16%) and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” (10%).
• The “most iconic” horror film antagonist is Freddy Krueger (54%), followed by Chucky (39%), Ghostface (34%) and Jack Torrance from “The Shining” (31%).
• As for the most iconic horror film, “Friday the 13th” gets that honor (41%). “Carrie” comes in second (35%), followed by “An American Werewolf in London” (33%), “Halloween” (33%), “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (27%), “Night of the Living Dead” (23%) and “The Exorcist” (9%).