Research: Horror Film Certification

Horror Film Certification

Common Horror Certification

Horror Films now tend to be a 15 certification. However we now see 12 certificates too, such as The Woman In Black. However, the most common is still 15.

From that point, this is because horror film production companies are likely to aim for their films to be a 15 as they can get a larger audience, this means more people can see the film which leads to an increase in sales so more income for the company and a higher position in the box office for the film.


Even though most horror's are rated 15 rather than an 18, they still contain threat, explicit language, gore, violence, imitable behaviour and the possible reference of sex. Meaning they are still able to scare their audience and give them a thrill of a horror as if it was an 18, and 15 rated horrors are generally more successful than 18 rated horrors.






The image above shows the most popular horror films of 2015.

They are all 15 certification.

Therefore, from this research, we still continue to plan at the moment to have the highest certification of a 15 rating. Although, we are going to try aim for a 12 certification due to allowing a larger audience.