Thursday, 1 October 2015

A2 Media - Horror Film Poster Analysis



Looking at the first two posters, The Return and Static, we see similar codes and conventions. Firstly the colour schemes are largely similar with cold, dark shades with minimal contrasting areas of white.
These are more modern films, contrast to this are the slightly older films. The right hand poster, The Gorgon, was released in 1965 which is apparent when looking even at the colour scheme by itself. It has a much larger spectrum of colours, including much brighter colours, but this obviously changed over time.

Another contrast between the time periods is in the font. The older poster has almost a dripping font that an audience today would laugh at rather then be scared by. The other two are much more plane and serious that match the tone of the movie. On the right hand side poster, The Return, the R is also reversed. This is a very clever detail for a number of reasons. First of all, the word return means to go back, so its a clever visual pun. However it primarily symbolises the inherent backward nature of this film. Even in the poster there is a hand inside of an eyeball, not the most straight forward of images.

Another point on these posters is their tag lines. They seem to be most commonly situated above the main image and title. I believe the reason for this is that it represents the pacing of these films. There is usually a lot of build up and character development before the actual horror aspects present itself, so a suspenseful tag line placed 'before' the main image and title visually represents this.

The final point that links all three images is a similar centre focused and imposing figure. Again this is almost foreshadowing in a way as it sets a dark and serious tone for the film. It puts an emphasis and a focus of importance onto the character, be it protagonist or villain. Regardless of role the character in question will always play a quintessential role in the film.