Practice Horror Trailer

Above is my practice horror trailer from when I first started A2 Media - I worked with Brad Lacey who I will be working with for the Cold Blood trailer - we work really well together.

Cloverfield (2008) Trailer

WHICH POSITIVE, CLEVER OR INTERESTING ASPECTS DO YOU THINK YOU COULD INCLUDE IN YOUR OWN TRAILER? WHAT GENERIC FEATURES ARE FULFILLED WELL?

·         This horror/action film trailer delivers that of a scene trailer. This means that the trailer focuses on one scene in the entire film: it’s Robs leaving party where everyone is happy and jolly but that then transform to a very panicky pace when stuff, such as the statue of liberty’s head, are being thrown around the city. Not only is this different to the vast-majority of trailers which visualize the ‘highlight trailer’ (showing the best part of the film that reveals the narrative), which makes it very enticing. But it also doesn’t show that much of the narrative which gives us the mystery of wondering what happens in the rest of the film. This vague approach makes us want to know more.

·         The film is ideal for the 18-15 year old target audience.

·         There’s a handheld section which is stated.

·         Jolly party cut to jerky/jagged shots of explosion, and then it cuts to a slow moving head of the Statue of Liberty so there’s a clever and effective use of collision-cutting.

·         The noise is very intriguing; we want to know what it is and what’s throwing stuff around the city. We never see what is causing this horrific issue accordingly making us want to see it. These interesting moments in the little narrative shown, is a tease because we want to know what has caused this.

WHICH ASPECT OF THE TRAILED DID YOU THINK WERE UNSUCCESSFUL, AND WOULD PUT OFF ITS TARGET AUDIENCE? HOW IS IT DISAPPOINTING?

·         It doesn't deliver horror enough; it’s more of a mystery film.

·         It’s a risky move having a whole scene, which is the more important, in the trailer, when you approach it in the film you’ll know what’s going to happen.

WHAT WAS THE TRAILERS AVG. SCORE IN CLASS? WHY DID IT RECEIVE THAT MARK?

The average class score is 8. Reason being, it appeals to its desired target audience, the trailer showcases and delivers what it said it would, which is horror and action. The trailer doesn't tell us too much which engages us a lot more. And overall, the trailer is really effective.

Toxic Avengers (1985) Trailer

WHICH POSITIVE, CLEVER OR INTERESTING ASPECTS DO YOU THINK YOU COULD INCLUDE IN YOUR OWN TRAILER? WHAT GENERIC FEATURES ARE FULFILLED WELL?

·         This film is a comedy horror, and this trailer delivers comedy more so than horror. In terms of the comedy, it will appeal to an audience with a weird and silly sense of humour due to how strange some of the events shown in the trailer are.

·         The camera shots are okay

WHICH ASPECT OF THE TRAILED DID YOU THINK WERE UNSUCCESSFUL, AND WOULD PUT OFF ITS TARGET AUDIENCE? HOW IS IT DISAPPOINTING?

·         During the trailer there was an overuse of the word ‘toxic avenger’ which was extremely annoying and irritating – spent more time focusing on how many times they said that rather than focusing on the film.

·         The trailer is way too long; it’s roughly around 3minutes and 10seconds long.

·         For me personally, and the vast-majority of my class, found it to be ridiculous rather than funny.

·         The gore effects were so terrible

·         The actors don’t look as though they’re taking the job serious which makes the trailer look all the more as if it’s a joke.

WHAT WAS THE TRAILERS AVG. SCORE IN CLASS? WHY DID IT RECEIVE THAT MARK?

The average class score was 3.5. Reason being, it doesn’t deliver horror aspects at all. Some people may find it funny but the vast-majority of audiences will find that it doesn’t deliver on the comedy aspects either; it’s too silly. The gore effects and special effects were poorly done. And the duration was just too long, after a while you get bored.

Evil Dead (2013) Trailer

WHICH POSITIVE, CLEVER OR INTERESTING ASPECTS DO YOU THINK YOU COULD INCLUDE IN YOUR OWN TRAILER? WHAT GENERIC FEATURES ARE FULFILLED WELL?

·         The shots and editing fit well with the fast faced music; parallel music makes it more effective. The fast paced music links with the high intensity horror sequences.

·         The girl’s voice over plays the titles while cracks and darkness consumer the font – brilliant editing effects – clever connotation with how it corresponds to how the zombies eat other humans.

·         There’s a decent amount of gore that’s brilliant because it connects to the horror genre – there is genuine horror bits such as the tongue cut and the eyes on the girl.

·         There’s some narrative revealed, there’s still the mystery of the rest of the narrative, this in turn makes it all the more enticing; draws us in, because we want to know more.

·         They’ve made a clever and effective use of collision cutting, sequences from slow > quick, alongside quick flashes of action – this refers to the rapid speed of the scenes played in the film, fast zombies killing of humans quickly. Not only this, it makes us feel adrenalin.

·         The music fits the writing very dramatically; the inter-titles reveals some of the narrative with a dramatic approach.

WHICH ASPECT OF THE TRAILED DID YOU THINK WERE UNSUCCESSFUL, AND WOULD PUT OFF ITS TARGET AUDIENCE? HOW IS IT DISAPPOINTING?

·         The duration of the trailer is 2:20 which is very long so some people may argue that it reveals too much of the film.

·         Tthey'vea few unrealistic factors, such as the puke, which some may fund humorous rather than horrific.

·         Gore isn’t everyone cup-of-tea so the fact that this trailer has a lot of gore scenes may possibly put people of viewing the film.

WHAT WAS THE TRAILERS AVG. SCORE IN CLASS? WHY DID IT RECEIVE THAT MARK?

The average score in class was 9. Reason being, the inter-titles were good. They’ve used plenty amount of clever and intriguing collision cutting. The music is brilliant; it corresponds to the trailer perfectly. And lastly this horror trailer is genuinely scary so it’s very effective.

Favourite Image Analysis

Taking my horror research into account, I’ve decided that my favorite choice of scene is from The Last House On The Left (2009). The scene from Chapter 13 is the one I’m focusing on, where John and Emma find Mary on the patio porch, realizing that she’s been physically and sexually abused. We can see how horrified they are; how desperate they are for Mary’s survival - a year prior to Mary’s attack, the Collingwoods suffered a loss of Ben Collingwood, Mary’s brother. Subsequently depicting their fear of loosing another child, which makes this photograph very touching.

Furthermore, the way in which Mary is holding John’s arm, it conveys how much love there is in this family, it’s extremely heart-warming to see – denoting that no matter how old you are, you always need the love and support from your family.  

Converging my thoughts to characters and representation, this scene visualises the male hero and the female surival (‘final girl’). Focusing on the male hero, I find it extremely promising how John is a doctor. Up until this point in the film we had only little faith in Mary’s survival but from this point onwards, we as an audience feel a sense of hope as we know that she is in safe hands with her parents. Not only that, Johns face in this photo visualises not only his anxiety for his daughter but also his sheer determination for saving her. Subsequent to this, he and Emma work together in revenge tactics in order to bring justice to their family. In terms of Mary being the female surivor, it’s extremely shocking because usually in horror films, the blondes are always the victims and the brunettes are the survivors – her brunette mate, Paige, was the female victim -  so this goes against generic expectations, making the film all the more surprising.

This film plays on male gaze a lot, which is a theory that Laura Malvey focuses on. This image illustrating it perfectly. Mary’s a young girl, very pretty with a lovely figure and blonde hair, which is commonly thought to be extremely attractive so this film has used male gaze in order to entice males for their own pleasure. She also said that films are predominantly showcasing male gaze due to the overwhelming amount of male producers, and in terms of The Last House on The Left, is is the case, the producer is Dennis Lliadis.

Psycho 1960 - Image 3 Analysis

Norman, shortly after Marion’s arrival, invites Marion into his office for a chat. In his room he has several birds, that he stuffed himself (his hobby taxidermy – stuffing animals with the intention of preserving their bodies), hanging downwards from the top of his wall.

This corresponds to the context involving Ed Gein’s sadistic act of digging up his own mothers corpse and preserving it. Focusing on the birds, the “bird of prey” hanging from the wall, looms over Marion (Marion is also a birds name) which depicts that Marion is the prey; this connotes the danger that Marion is yet to face.

Towards the end of Psycho, we come to the understanding that Norman digs up his mum’s body from her grave, preserving her deceased corpse in his house and I feel that this is a connection to the birds. The reason is Norman's Schizophrenia – his split personality of himself and his mother. I feel that Norman is always influenced by his mother and the birds indicate this – he preserves his mother’s body like he does the birds' bodies – because they are and his mother will always be above him; will always dominate him.

Not only that, if you see the lighting in this photograph it illustrates that of low-key lighting, the predominant lighting being on the bird at the top left hand corner of the photo as well as the left half of Norman's face – thus representing his schizophrenia of his mother (birds) dominating half of his persona.

Furthermore, considering the shadows from the lighting on the birds, it further corresponds to Norman’s unconscious aspect of half of his personality, overtook by his mother. The shadows not only link to Norman’s forceful influence from his entrapped mentality inhibited by his mother, it also connotes the weakness of himself and the life he lives.

Psycho 1960 - Image 2 Analysis

This image is from the shower scene, just after her murder. The scene visualises Normal – dressed as his mother – killing her; she then falls out of the bath to the floor. The end shot of this scene displays Marion’s blood washing down the drain; this shot is then edited into Marion’s eye – symbolises that of her life washing away.

In terms of montage, this particular scene depicts fast sequence shots – of Marion’s murder -which differentiates from the collision cutting aspects of this shot where the scene changes to very slow which highlights the sad emotion of Marion’s death. This reflects the auteur influence of Alfred because he learnt how to make films during the soviet montage/silent era.

This extreme close-up of Marion’s tears still streaming down her face makes us sympathise for her because this cinematographic technique is used in order to emphasise that her life has just been taken from her. Not only that, with the direct approach of looking right into the camera; right at us, we feel slightly at blame for her death due to how helpless we are.

In addition to this, this whole shot is high-key lighting; it’s very bright and soothing. Expresses that of delicacy and innateness, I also feel this refers to her innocence; granted she stole the money but she planned to make things right and return the money.

Alfred loved to shock his audiences, and he done this extremely well in Psycho when he killed Janet Leigh (the woman who played Marion Crane’s character) – a huge Hollywood star - halfway through the film, thus referencing to the institutional context.

Psycho 1960 - Image 1 Analysis

This scene from Psycho follows Marion's brief conversation with Normal, shortly after she sets off to bed, having decided that she is going to take back the money that she has stolen.

This particular image visualises Normal looking through a small hole in a wall that separates Marion’s bedroom to Norman’s office. This connotes the idea of voyeurism – enjoyment of spying on someone – because he takes down a painting (called “the rape of lucrecia” which is a Greek story of a sex crime to watch Marion get undressed and ready for a shower (using this particular painting was not accidental by Hitchcock, he applied this specific painting in this certain way to add to the effect of the scene - the painting links to the feministic approach of this scene). Norman gave Marion the first motel room which he wanted her to stay in for the night, implicates that he planned to spy on her later on in the film.

In terms of mise-on-scene, the image encapsulates that of low-key-lighting with a back-light silhouette; his whole head is a silhouette apart from the right side of his face. The lighting is coming in from the peephole which suggests that Marion is innocent, and Normal isn’t.

This particular image also represents Norman’s Schizophrenia because the way his face is half-light and half-dark, it connotes that he delivers good and evil acts. He represents his good acts through helping Marion out with a place to stay even though his “Mother-side” is angry. However, this image conveys his bad side through his lack of respect for woman’s privacy, relating to misogyny because he has an unnatural hatred towards woman. Marion has never done anything to him and he is unaware of her crime, yet his mother's jealously causes the “Norma” side of his personality to kill her.

Andrew Sarris – leading critic behind the auteur theory – suggests that the best way to approach a film is to identify the director’s artistic style. Which is true, Alfred Hitchcock was known for being a voyeur obsessed by blonde woman. Although Psycho is historically contextual about the Ed Gein case back in 1957, this idea of voyeurism was personal to Hitchcock himself, which was possibly the reason why he included it into this iconic thriller movie, so this film fully reflects the persona of Alfred to which he depicts in his films.