Saturday 22 March 2014

Deconstruction of Age Ratings

In order to understand who will be the most appropriate audience for our opening, I looked at the age ratings (UK) of horror/slasher films in accordance with the gore and plot. Our opening features a man chasing a girl, strangling her, then cutting her open and removing her fetus - some audiences may find this disturbing and/or offensive so I am investigating what age rating would be most appropriate for this.

All the Saw films are rated 18 because they "contain very strong bloody violence and gore" (BBFC). The deaths in Saw are sadistic and very gory so young audiences may find it extremely disturbing.








Evil Dead (2013) is rated 18 because it "contains strong bloody violence, gory horror and very strong language" (BBFC). Our opening contains some violence and a lot of gore so an 18 certificate could be appropriate. However, in terms of commercial success, as it is certified as an 18, the film could lose a significant amount of money because if it were a 15 then more people could watch it.


The Crazies is rated 15 because it "contains strong bloody violence and language" (BBFC) however our opening does not include 'bloody violence' but it is gruesome so could be a 15.






Final Destination 5 is rated a 15 because it "Contains strong gore" (BBFC) which is exactly what our film opening includes so we could certify ours as a 15.







Overall, the age rating of our film opening should be a 15 because (if this were to be a real film) it would lose out on a lot of money because limiting it to 18+ means less people can watch it than if it were a 15. Also, the 'violence' in our opening is simply the killer strangling to victim which is briefly shown. However, it is rated as high as 15 because of the gore and the idea of a man killing pregnant women and taking their fetuses which some people, especially younger audiences, may find traumatising.

No comments:

Post a Comment