Horror Cinema By the Numbers

It would be interesting to compare the rate of growth of horror films since 1930 to the rate of growth of all films.

Comment by Steve Peace from california — November 27, 2007 @ 12:44 pm

This is indeed an interesting issue. Even though I no longer have the raw data with me, the trend of the overall, worldwide, all-genre, film productions can be inferred from the results posted on my article (at least for the 1960-2006 period). Indeed, from the 1960s until 2000, the ratio between horror and overall film productions remained constant at about 3 per cent. This means that during this period of time, the number of overall film productions had a similar trend as those in the horror genre. Also, between 2000 and 2006, the production of horror films roughly doubled, from 358 to 874. And in addition, we also know that the percentage of horror films on the overall production nearly doubled on this time frame. As a result, the overall production of films, worldwide, from all genres, is also experiencing an exponential growth (with different scaling factors, but exponential nevertheless). But if you think about it, this is to be expected, as the modern, cheap way to make films using digital technologies, is equally used for horror, as it is in action, drama, or comedies. Of course, the overall trend will follow completely different fluctuations in time, but the rate of growth will remain exponential.

Comment by Marco Lanzagorta from Alexandria, Virginia — November 27, 2007 @ 11:37 pm