With Halloween around the corner, CivicScience took a closer look at scary movie fans. Survey data show that 19% of U.S. adults say they love scary movies, 18% say they like them, 23% feel neutral (“just okay”), 35% don’t like them, and 4% have no opinion.
Millennials are the most likely to say they love scary movies, while Baby Boomers are the most likely to say they don’t like them. Men and women are nearly equally likely to be fans, but women are more likely to feel strongly about disliking them. City dwellers lead in loving scary movies, while rural residents slightly edge out in not liking them. Regionally, those in the Northeast hold the strongest opinions on both ends of the spectrum.
But demographics aren’t the only thing setting scary-movie super fans apart from those who don’t like scary movies:
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Food Choices: Fans of scary movies are nearly 20 percentage points more likely to eat plant-based meat compared to non-fans.
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Podcasts: Nearly a quarter of them listen to thriller podcasts.
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News Habits: They’re twice as likely to read a print edition of a national newspaper.
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Cooking: Fans are also more than 10 points more likely to say they love cooking.
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Sleep: Scary-movie lovers over-index compared to non-fans in getting under 6 hours of sleep a night.
Scary-movie fans stand out not just for their taste in film, but for their broader lifestyle patterns. From experimenting with food choices to how they consume media and how much they sleep, these fans live a little differently—both on and off the screen.
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This article’s data comes solely from CivicScience’s database, which contains nearly 700,000 poll questions and 5 billion consumer insights.