Codes and Conventions of

Film Posters

There are many conventions in film posters. One convention that is commonly used is an extreme close-up of the eye. This eye is used to create an eerie, unnatural look, to draw the audience to it because it is so unusual. It indicates that someone is watching you. Because the eye is cropped, it creates an impact and expresses the emotion of fear, as the eyes are widened with fear. I think this is an effective convention due to these factors and can be very effective for supernatural horror films.

Many horror films use a house setting. There are a number of horror films with an eerie photograph of a house, either with the protagonist in the foreground or the house on its own. Psychological and supernatural genre’s particularly use houses in their posters. Slasher films can also take place in a house. The background around the house is often dark and foggy and is made to look strange and unnatural. They are traditional looking houses that are very large and in many cases are haunted. Posters in which a house is used, often creates enigma because we do not know whether it is the people who live in the house or the house itself that is causing disequilibrium.

Another convention used in film posters is a dark figure with their back turned to the viewer and their head slightly turned to be able to see their silhouette. The lighting is usually dark and is sometimes backlit in order to highlight certain parts of the silhouette, often in unnatural ways to make it look creepier.

These film poster codes and convention will influence my film poster because in my synopsis it says that the ‘killer is watching you’, so I could an image on an eye on my poster. I can also house an silhouette of a dark figure, hence the killer or spirit warching and waiting for the protagonists.