Horror Sells as Commodity: Examining Socio-psychological Effects of Horror Film among Adults during Covid-19

Abstract

This research seeks to uncover the causes that affect young people's choice to watch horror films. Demographics i.e. gender, setting, and psychological factors i.e. past beliefs about the entities shown in horror films; audiences are exposed to specific results that differ in severity and naturebased on their gender category, setting, and past beliefs about the objects seen in horror films. This study's fundamental structure is to find the psychological issues among adults while focusing on social cognitive theory. It can be explained what makes some people enjoy horror films and why some people avoid them, argues that audiences are proactive and their location, self-effectiveness, and selfreflexiveness play a significant role in their learning process. The survey research is employed for this study and data collected from 560 male and female of two cities of Punjab, Pakistan (Sargodha and Lahore) with age 20 to 35 years during the Covid-19 lockdown. The findings of the study reveal that there are two critical reasons for youth to watching horror films, amusement and interest. Young people who believe in these characters from film or other supernatural entities are more scared than those who do not believe in their existence. It is infer that horror is commodity that sells fear in horror films among adults. However, Sociopsychological effects of horror films cannot be ignored.