Movies are a life line for most of us. A chance to get away from reality and get into the dreamy world that most of us can never have. This is an analogy that has often been used for Hindi masala flicks which are too nonsensical and unrealistic to believe. But they are entertaining and lets the viewers who are tired with their non-stop life to sit back for a while and just enjoy. Now that I am writing these words I am thinking about the words “nonsensical” and “unrealistic” that I have used to describe the Bollywood masala movies, I am wondering whether the same two words can be used to describe the movies that I have been writing about.
What prevents us from saying that these gory and torturous movies are unrealistic in nature. Perhaps not 100% but certainly to a great extent. Most of these movies also have just a nonsensical and beaten to death plot. And as long as a viewer can know that whatever he is seeing on the screen is just an animation and not a reality, then, what’s preventing him to savor some unrealistic entertainment he knows he will never have in life. Perhaps, I am under-playing the kind of cinema that I am talking about but I just want to look at it from a different angle. Not from the same angle that I have always been thinking that it’s so gory and that it perhaps will take a psycho to enjoy such horrible acts of torture.
Anyways, to come to the main theme of this particular entry, who exactly are the consumers of this genre of movies? At the first glance, we can directly segment them on the basis of age. And anyone above the age of 18 years is qualified by law to watch such movies. But that still doesn’t point to the target segment. It’s just that the law thinks that people above 18 years are suitable to handle such movies as they have become adults. But with the advent of technology, there are perhaps a few underage people also who watch these movies. Now, out of the legally qualified people, we can perhaps further divide the segment into following people who will be willing to watch such movies:
· Horror fans
· Curious on-lookers
· Daring challengers
· One-off cases
· By-mistake people
Yeah yeah, I know. The classification is real classy. Though, going by this classification, the pool doesn’t seem to be big enough to actually make the genre worthy of making profits. We have to remember that not all horror fans will be willing to watch a movie of this genre. Horror will have its own degree of consumption and there will be various levels. This level that we are talking of is perhaps around the highest level of horror that anyone can digest. And we are well aware that as we go high, there are fewer people to find there. The second segment of curious on-lookers may certainly be bigger than the bottom two combined but still not huge enough. This segment as well as the third one of “Daring challengers” perhaps overlap each other a lot.
Now, if I have to give a percentage of world population who will fall under each category, then, what exactly it will be? I guess it’s perhaps very tough to predict it so subjectively. But, let me give it a try. If I take my base as IMDB which is perhaps the best site for movie fans and enthusiasts, then, the most popular of the movies in the site have been rated by almost 300,000 odd people. For the genre of movies that I am discussing, Hostel has been rated by around 50,000 odd people and the rest have yet to cross being rated by 25,000 people. There are some exceptions like Sin City which has gone for more than 150,000 votes but then that’s a Tarintino movie with a supposedly very artistic flavor and a huge fan following with it. Now, if we consider that only one-tenth of the people who watch the movie actually rate it, then also we will arrive at an optimistic figure of 500,000 audience. I have chosen just a fraction of one-tenth because these kind of movies perhaps have a very limited audience and aren’t released on such a wide scale all around the world. Is this much audience enough to make money for the producers? I guess not. Perhaps my calculation is too understated.
In a later post, I will perhaps give this count a more thought. Perhaps a back calculation might help to arrive at the figure. And for the next one, let’s see why do audience watch such gory flicks.
What prevents us from saying that these gory and torturous movies are unrealistic in nature. Perhaps not 100% but certainly to a great extent. Most of these movies also have just a nonsensical and beaten to death plot. And as long as a viewer can know that whatever he is seeing on the screen is just an animation and not a reality, then, what’s preventing him to savor some unrealistic entertainment he knows he will never have in life. Perhaps, I am under-playing the kind of cinema that I am talking about but I just want to look at it from a different angle. Not from the same angle that I have always been thinking that it’s so gory and that it perhaps will take a psycho to enjoy such horrible acts of torture.
Anyways, to come to the main theme of this particular entry, who exactly are the consumers of this genre of movies? At the first glance, we can directly segment them on the basis of age. And anyone above the age of 18 years is qualified by law to watch such movies. But that still doesn’t point to the target segment. It’s just that the law thinks that people above 18 years are suitable to handle such movies as they have become adults. But with the advent of technology, there are perhaps a few underage people also who watch these movies. Now, out of the legally qualified people, we can perhaps further divide the segment into following people who will be willing to watch such movies:
· Horror fans
· Curious on-lookers
· Daring challengers
· One-off cases
· By-mistake people
Yeah yeah, I know. The classification is real classy. Though, going by this classification, the pool doesn’t seem to be big enough to actually make the genre worthy of making profits. We have to remember that not all horror fans will be willing to watch a movie of this genre. Horror will have its own degree of consumption and there will be various levels. This level that we are talking of is perhaps around the highest level of horror that anyone can digest. And we are well aware that as we go high, there are fewer people to find there. The second segment of curious on-lookers may certainly be bigger than the bottom two combined but still not huge enough. This segment as well as the third one of “Daring challengers” perhaps overlap each other a lot.
Now, if I have to give a percentage of world population who will fall under each category, then, what exactly it will be? I guess it’s perhaps very tough to predict it so subjectively. But, let me give it a try. If I take my base as IMDB which is perhaps the best site for movie fans and enthusiasts, then, the most popular of the movies in the site have been rated by almost 300,000 odd people. For the genre of movies that I am discussing, Hostel has been rated by around 50,000 odd people and the rest have yet to cross being rated by 25,000 people. There are some exceptions like Sin City which has gone for more than 150,000 votes but then that’s a Tarintino movie with a supposedly very artistic flavor and a huge fan following with it. Now, if we consider that only one-tenth of the people who watch the movie actually rate it, then also we will arrive at an optimistic figure of 500,000 audience. I have chosen just a fraction of one-tenth because these kind of movies perhaps have a very limited audience and aren’t released on such a wide scale all around the world. Is this much audience enough to make money for the producers? I guess not. Perhaps my calculation is too understated.
In a later post, I will perhaps give this count a more thought. Perhaps a back calculation might help to arrive at the figure. And for the next one, let’s see why do audience watch such gory flicks.
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