Film poster over view

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These six posters have been created to promote films within the psychological horror sun-genre.i will be able to see what they all have in common, what makes them all powerful and successful and which elements should definately be included in my own work.

Each poster contains the obvious codes and conventions such as a slogan, a main image that takes up most of the frame, a dominant title, institution Information, and a release date. All conventions play a role in the iconography and imagery of the horror genre. They are all effective in portraying their sub- genre to their target audience. With these six posters five of them show repeated patterns surrounding the antagonist presenting as the main image that takes up the frame. Each antagonist shows to be blurred of some sort or the shot takes is a long shot and we can’t see the face properly, giving the sense of mystery and anonymity. It can be used to entice the audience and leave them guessing and wondering as to who they are and what they look like. We can see that in three of the posters the antagonist holding a form of weapon, whether it is to torment of kill their victims. The ‘Blair Witch Project’ poster shows a symbol which is used to create torment and pain of its victims in the film, showing that a weapon doesn’t have to be the soul symbolic link towards the psychological horror sub-genre as they are mainly seen within the slasher sub genre of horror. It also follows the conventions of a horror poster by using a female victim being tormented by something or someone. However this doesn’t follow conventions of the horror sub- genre; Psychological as in these posters the killer/antagonist is the main image on the frame rather than the victim. In ‘The Amityville Horror’ poster we see the outline of what appears to be the antagonist (as he has a weapon in his hand) standing in front of a big isolated house, which reinforces the horror conventions of having a large isolated house as the main locating of where the action takes place. As psychological horrors are known for surrounding the life of the antagonist and why he or she are killing or tormenting people, this is why they are the main image.

In five of the posters the predominant colour that features around the frame is black. This shows the darkness within the movie, also one of the most iconic scares during any horror film is where something or someone jumps out at the victims to scare both them and the audience. This plays upon everyone’s deepest fear of the unknown and what is lurking in the shadows.as seen in ‘The Blair Witch Project’ the woods outline is surrounded by darkness, leaving the unknown to play with the audiences’ and victims minds. In the ‘Uninvited’ poster the colour that surrounds the frame is grey to create a ‘cold’ effect, this is different to the rest of the posters, however the face of what seems to be the antagonist is covered by a dark black shadow.

The images that are used are designed to create a tension between the audience and the narrative. As the audience do not know who the killer is, the posters make the images ambiguous and distorted. But we can see a form of weapon or symbol that will be used to kill/torture the victims, as seen in the poster ‘Dead Silence’ the dummy appears to be wearing a demonic, evil smile, which suggests that it would be used to lure its victims into a false sense of security and then something will happen to them. The images of the horror genre altrogher mainly feature female protagonist's as they are more believeable in the sense that a woman is accepted for being less brave and more emotional than a man, therfore the create better victims for the fans to route for. With reference to the use of females in poters they are seen as the vitims, with  them screaming or looking as though they are being tourmented by something or someone. The antagonist, is mainly male, in which men are seen as stronger beings then women therefore can over power most people. We mainly see male antagonist in posters but we rarely see their faces , just the outline of their bodies, this creates a sense of fear within the audiece as we cannot see what their faces look like, and of course as we know the unkown is far more scarier then the familar. 
The images can also show the narrative of the film, such as 'Orphan', we can tell that there is a secret surrounding the girl featured on the poster, as she is not screaming or looking afraid , we can assume she is the antagonist and that her 'secret' will run the plot. 
 

The title of the poster is placed consistently in the same spot in every poster. It is the largest size of font on the poster and would attract the most attention. The titles are linked with the image its self, for the ‘Halloween 2’ poster the same colour is used for the title as it is used in the image, it reinforces the title and narrative as it is set on Halloween night, where a symbol of Halloween is a pumpkin. Five out of six of the posters all have titles that are written in capital letters, however on is written in lower cases lettering and in childlike handwriting. This could be a link to the narrative of the film as the main antagonist could be a child or the victim could be a child. The effects of all the lettering throughout the posters are in either white or red, the red is a symbol of blood that is a classic horror conventions and the white can be seen as innocence which would be ironic to the type of film.

Taglines that are featured within the posters are conventionally placed at the top of the poster or above the title. The tagline shows the link between the image and the title or may reveal what the narrative is. ‘Halloween 2’s tagline is ‘Evil Walks Among Us’ this shows that the victims may even know the killer, that it could be anyone and it not happening for a random reason, that the killer wants revenge or of psychologically sick. the taglines that are use also anchor the audience into the understanding