Selling Fear for Fun and Profit

Whether you took in a screening of "Scream 4" this year, visited a haunted house this month, or bought a zombie Halloween costume, you’re a customer in the “business of fear.”

Dimension Films Neve Campbell in Scream 4.

Yes, people continue to pay good money to get scared out of their wits.

Broaden the customer base to include extreme sports enthusiasts. Mix in sedate readers of Stephen King, Anne Rice, or Charlaine Harris, and you’re talking about tens of millions of Americans plunking down billions of dollars annually.

“A lot of people like to be scared,” says Paul Dergarabedian, a Hollywood.com box-office analyst. “It’s one of the most basic emotions people have.”

In the mid-1980s, Temple University psychologist Frank Farley coined the term “Type T” to define a thrill-seeking personality.

"These thrill-seekers thrive on the uncertainty associated with activities that most people would consider scary,” says Farley. “The ‘fear business’ usually offers us a cocktail of thrills, excitement, intensity, and challenge. It represents departures from the baselines of our lives.”

Farley estimates Type T personalities represent 10 percent to 30 percent of the global population.

“America to some extent is a Type-T nation," says Farley. "I see the risk-taking quality at a deep level in this country. After all, we’re founded by fearless risk-taking types."

Rest assured, whatever the behavior, business is there cater to it. Here are some examples.

Halloween

Seven of 10 Americans — 161 million people — plan to celebrate Halloween this year, spending an average of $72.31 on decorations, costumes and candy, according to a National Retail Federation survey.

Once you tally spending for parties, visits to a haunted house, pumpkin carving — even pet costumes — total Halloween spending is expected to reach $6.86 billion, tops for a non gift-giving holiday.

Per-person spending on Halloween has increased every year but one since 2004, when the average was $41, said Kathy Grannis, NRF’s director of media relations.

“There’s a large belief that it’s become so popular because it’s no longer seen as a children’s holiday,” says Grannis. “Fifteen years ago, the adult costume selection was very limited, often just a black plastic trash bag.”

This year, more will be spent on adult costumes ($1.2 billion) than children's costumes ($1 billion), with pet costumes taking in another $310 million.

An entire Halloween industry has been built on people’s enjoyment of fear.

“Festivities run the gamut,” says Grannis. “Costume parties at bars and theme parks now start on Oct. 1.”

Haunted Houses

Nearly 23 percent of Americans — 37 million people — celebrating Halloween this year will visit a haunted house in October, according to the NRF.

Those numbers will translate into ticket sales worth more than $360 million, says Leonard Pickel, editor of Haunted Attraction magazine. In addition, he says an estimated $150 million was spent this year on building and refurbishing haunted venues, which now number between 3,000 and 5,000.

Some houses will take in more than 50,000 attendees, paying $20 or more a ticket during an average 20 days of operation in October, says Pickel.

Haunted house operators even hold an annual convention, HAUNTcon, which features several days of workshops designed to help attendees learn new makeup techniques, prop and set building, advertising and marketing, and actor training, as well as other tips to make their attractions more successful.

This year’s tradeshow, held in early May in Monroesville, Pa., brought more than 40 exhibitors, including Gore Galore, the Hot Wire Foam Factory, Rotting Flesh Radio and Fright Props.

Film and Television

The domestic box office take for horror films in the past three years has been about $1.5 billion, according to an analysis done for CNBC by Hollywood.com, which tracks the entertainment industry.

Horror movies are popular with film makers because they typically don’t cost much to make and enjoy a built-in audience, offering the potential for stellar profits. Horror movies consistently have the most films in the top 20 for return on investment and the least in the lowest 20 ROI, according to web site The Numbers.

Best exemplifying this business model is the 2007 hit "Paranormal Activity," which was made for $15,000 but grossed nearly $162 million. As with most current horror films, there have been two sequels, so far.

• Top Ten Grossing Horror Movie Franchises

For the movie-going public, horror films can offer gut-wrenching fear in a safe setting.

“The promise of thrills, of controlled scares, and the sense of engaging in mildly transgressive behavior certainly explains why some movie watchers gravitate to scary movies,” says film historian Richard Nowell from Charles University in Prague.

“People can vicariously exorcise their own demons," adds Hollywood.com’s Dergarabedian. "In the safety of your own home or theater, you can visualize something you’d never live through in your life or want to.”

Television has been cashing in on the horror genre in recent years, especially with programs about vampires. HBO’s "True Blood" is the network’s biggest hit since "The Sopranos," with 5 million regular viewers. At an average price of $40, more than 1.4 million DVDs of "True Blood: The Complete First Season" were sold. The show just finished its third season.

Since the three-film "Twilight" franchise began a little more than two years ago, vampire films have brought in $7 billion, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Books

Most experts track the current vampire trend back to the 2005 publication date of stay-at-home-mom-turned-author Stephenie Meyers’ "Twilight" series.

Vampires have always been fascinating to people, but "Twilight" put them on another level, took it into the mainstream,” says Hollywood.com’s Dergarabedian.