This study investigated how the visual and auditory elements in horror film trailers affected audiences’ fear levels and examined whether the sequential relationship between audiences’ fear levels, expected pleasure to watch the film, and the intention of watching the film was moderated by audiences’ protective frames. The sources of protective frames were classified into being automatically set (audiences’ approach or avoidance tendencies toward fear) and artificially set (the degree of trailer scenes close to ordinary people’s lives). The main findings of the two experiments are as follows: (1) Fast (vs. slow) tempo background music elicited a higher fear level. (2) When the music tempo was fast and the distance between the source of horror (i.e., the ghost) and those frightened by it (i.e., the movie character) was proximal (vs. far), the audience felt greater fear. (3) Protective frame moderated the relationship among fear, expected pleasure, and intention to watch the film. For audiences with high protective frames, the indirect effect of fear on intention to watch the film through expected pleasure was positive, while for the low protective frames audience, the indirect effect was negative. (4) The fear level of fear-approaching audiences had a direct positive impact on intention to watch the film, whereas that of fear-avoiding audiences indirectly decreased the intention to watch the film through lowering expected pleasure. (5) The degree of trailer scenes close to ordinary people’s lives affected the setting of an artificial protective frame. In fear-avoiding audiences, scenes with low closeness to life weakened the negative effects of fear.
本站僅提供期刊文獻檢索。
