Audience on a low budget Thriller film - Paranormal Activity

Paranormal Activity is a Horror/Thriller film that was released in 2007. The film is estimated to be the most profitable of all time and was originally meant to be targeted at a niche audience. But the Director Oren Peli had difficulties in getting his film distributed a the Sundance Film Festival rejected it at first then Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg cut a deal with Peli. They were going to remake the original film at first but then a limited screening showed that it was popular.

Box Office
Budget:
$11,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend:
$77,873 (USA) (12 Screens)
Gross:
$107,917,283 (USA)

Audience feedback 

As we can see from this graph taken from IMDB, the main audience was Males Aged 18-29. The reviews border an average 6.7 score which is a mediocre rating for the movie. The younger generation rated it higher while the older generation voted it lower. This is probably due to the gripping and intense nature of the film, it appeals to teens but does not appeal to older adults who may find the movie too scary or shocking.
On Rotten Tomatoes the film got a "certified fresh" rating of 82% from critics. One critic said it was " frightening, freaky and terrifying" whilst another critic slammed the movie and said it was " extremely unthrilling,  obvious , cliched and we've seen it all before."

Evaluation
From this information I can see again that the main audience was Males 18-29 and this is what we need to aim for as a group when making our Thriller. Paranormal Activity was regarded as very gripping, mysterious and intensifying . We know that when we plan our storyline that we have to make it thrilling for an audience and keep them on the edge, we can't make it too obvious either and can use many techniques to add to the intensity. This movie was filmed using Handheld cameras and we can use this technique and will have to as we are a low budget , independent film company.