Conventions of Horror Film Posters

By Mohamed Bushra

• Film posters are used as a form of promotion for upcoming shows and films, just like film trailers but in a hard copy. Because they’re physical piece they can be put anywhere for example public transport, billboards, bus stops etc.

• The aim is to catch the audience’s eye so they look at it, read the information and then share it with friends and family.

• My chosen genre is Horror and therefore I will be looking at real life film posters to aid me in the creation of my own film posters.

Both posters have a character shown, on the right you have ‘the women in black’ and refers to the title. On the left you have the protagonist and we only see half of his face. The location shown is in the

middle of nowhere, suggesting an isolated place where there will be no help. But on the left poster we see a massive mansion compared to the character.

There are children presents but they’re faded, suggesting they're ghosts. Audience sympathises with them as they know they’re dead.

Both posters have the name of the actor. This draws the audience as they have watched his previous films.

We a see a tagline in both posters ‘WHAT DID THEY SEE?’ and ‘SHE’LL NEVER LET GO’. This is a temptation so the audience want to find out more.

The text colour is white, connotes innocence and purity. Which is the total opposite of the film.

The text colour is white, connotes innocence and purity. Which is the total opposite of the film.

The Women in Black

• The main visual in the posters are the protagonist and the villain (women in black). They’re introduced to the audience before watching the film.

• The colour scheme of both posters is dark. The posters look vintage, but the use of the colour black has great significance as we connote this colour with death, danger negative energy around us. This implies that the main character will be in danger and the villain is the women.

Annabelle

The title of the film is shown on both posters in capital. The font is similar to Sans Serif.

The left poster shows only half of the face of ‘Annabelle’ and blood is dripping out her eye. While the right poster shows the doll sitting in a chair.

Both have taglines ‘Before The Conjuring there was Annabelle’. This informs the audience that this is a prequel of ‘The Conjuring’.

The typical use of males and females on horror posters is not reinforced here. As we only see the monster (villain).

The poster doesn’t give much away e.g. the location, date or other characters.

Underneath the film title there is a hashtag ‘#ANNABELLE’.

• The poster as others follows the use of dark colours and house-style to set the mood and atmosphere. The colours are very dark and tedious, the black connotes death and suffering. The background is pure black and absorbs the colours of the doll on both posters.

• The doll on the left poster has a tear of blood coming out of the left eye. This completely overthrows the idea of childhood, innocence and purity. The film will be seen as dark and disturbing, which the poster has successfully established.

• The use if the taglines informs the audience of previous films that the doll was in ‘Before The Conjuring there was Annabelle’. For the people that watched ‘The Conjuring’ they will know that the doll was controlled by a demon.

• The social media hashtag ‘#ANNABELLE’ allows the audience start discussing the trailer and poster online, therefore actively engage before it is released and create publicity on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc.

• On the right poster ‘COMING SOON’ is printed at the bottom, this tells the audience that the film will be released in the near future but no specific date has been given.

Scream 4

Release date for the film is in the same font as the title and in red.

There is a tagline ‘NEW DECADE. NEW RULES.’ on both posters.

The title of the film is ‘SCRE4M’ and not scary. The number ‘4’ is part of the film title.

Three characters + villain shown on the left poster, while only the villain is shown on the right poster.

The colour of the poster are black and grey, the title and names of actors are white and red.

The layout is different than other horror films e.g. the tagline is at the top of the page.

• The title is in bold and uppercase. It doesn’t look scary as the only letter that suggest it is an horror (Slasher) is the letter ‘M’ which has a very sharp end symbolising a knife. They replaced the letter ‘A’ with ‘4’, meaning they’re showing the sequences of all the films together. My interpretation of the ‘4’ is that it doesn’t a dark atmosphere to the poster.

• The tagline ‘New Decade. New Rules’ suggests that this film will not be as the previous ‘Scream’ films. The audience will start thinking that there are new victims but because of the line ‘New Rules’ the way the villain will kill them might change.

• Both images are very important, as the left poster shows three protagonist but they’re covered in the smoke of the iconic Scream mask. This connotes that they’re trapped and that they’re in his sight. The right poster shows the Scream mask, but it is shaped as a knife, meaning the villain uses a knife as the murder weapon.

• The colours of the poster; black, grey, white and red have different meaning. The black and grey connote darkness and the horror genre. While the white (names of actors) is innocence and purity, the red connotes gore, danger and alarm.

• The layout of the poster is similar to other horror posters, but the tagline has been displaced to the top of the poster and not beneath the film title. On other posters the tagline adds an explanation to the poster e.g. ‘Annabelle’ and ‘Women in Black’.

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