Poster Analysis
of
horror genre

Sinister

In the poster for the movie ‘Sinister’, he audience are immediately drawn to the young girl who looks to be smearing blood on a wall with the image of a clown. The reason why they have decided to use a child here is because from my research I have found that children are viewed as vulnerable. The use of blood on the wall and the clown on the wall gives the audience a slight idea of what the film is about and what it includes. However in my opinion, the thing that brings most attention to is the title beneath the title ‘Sinister’ it says ‘ Once you see him, nothing can save you’, this title here emphasises the genre of the film and causes tension and a sense of danger because it indicates that  there is something extremely dangerous in the film as ‘nothing can save you’ from it, this therefore has the effect of persuading the audience into wanting to watch the film to find out who this dangerous character is. At the top of the poster, it says ‘From the producer of Paranormal activity and Insidious’, this gathers audiences from paranormal activity and insidious to come and see the film. The font used has dried up blood stained coming off the bottom of the letters, this gives the audience an insight on what the film is about, the font also is scary as well and suits the genre of the film.

Annabelle

In this poster, the face of a toy doll is lit up, this lighting makes the face of the doll more defined which adds to the scary genre. Instead of a tear drop, they have changed it to a tear drop of blood, this gives further insight into what the film will be about and what the audience can expect from the film. The eye of the girl is staring, they are wide open which again adds to the scary genre of the film. In the bottom of the poster, it says ‘before the conjuring there was ANNABELLE’, this makes audiences from the conjuring come to watch this film. The font used for the movie name is very big and in red which makes it stand out against the black background, again linking in with the theme of blood which we know that is included in the film. The camera shot used here is a close up, this type of angle allows us to see the facial expressions of a person and this works excellently as it adds to the fear and terror of the film cover which again adds to the genre of the film. At the bottom of the poster, there is also a #Annabelle, this again helps with promoting the film as this will be used on Twitter so the film gets a bigger audience.

Devil's Due

Specific presentational devices used on this poster are accent lighting, the reason why accent lighting is used is because the girl in the centre of the poster is the first thing that the audience look at. The cot is also glowing, the use of this lighting makes a link between the cot, the girl with the tagline ‘’Fear is born’’. The text on the tagline is coloured in white, the colour white symbolises purity and peace however there is a juxtaposition here because babies are supposed to be pure but this baby is the devils baby. The costume the girl is wearing is also the colour white, it is a white maternity dress, this shows that the mother is pure and innocent but it is the complete opposite to what her baby is again linking in with the name of the movie. The girl is positioned in the centre of the poster, this is done to show that she is one of the main characters, looking at the body language, the girl is kneeling down which shows vulnerability. The movie name is in the colour red, red is used to link in with the film and to give the audience a sense of what the movie may be about, we associate red with blood so this is why this colour maybe used. On this poster, a hash tag is also included #DevilsDue, this is used to help promote this film in the marketing and distribution field. Internet website is also given, this is so that the audience can get further information on the film to further promote and distribution. The camera shot used here is a long shot, this is used to show that the girl is on her own which again shows vulnerability.