Whitney-Anne Ideh.
Film title: Texas Chain Massacre.
Release date: 4th January 2013 (UK).
Director: Marcus Nispel.
Production/financing Company: Leatherface productions.
Lionsgate.
Millennium films.
Distributors: Millennium Films.
Lionsgate.
Principal Cast: Alexandra Daddario – Heather Miller.
Dan Yeager – Leatherface.
Trey Songz – Ryan.
Scott Eastwood – Carl.
Tania Raymonde – Nikki.
Shaun Sipos – Darryl.
Karem Malicki-sanchez – Kenny.
Synopsis: After the first massacre in 1974, the townspeople suspected that the Sawyer family were responsible. A vigilante mob of enraged locals surrounded the Sawyer house, burning it to the ground and killing every last member of the family. Decades later, a young woman named Heather learns that she has inherited a Texas estate from her grandmother. She decides to bring her friends along on the road trip to investigate her inheritance. On arrival, she discovers she has inherited a mansion, but is yet to uncover the terrors that lurk in the basement underneath it.
Genre: The sub-genre of this movie is Thriller and slasher.
Narrative: In the begging we see a van and in the van we see 3 characters, in which we see a male at the back with a female in her bra, putting on her clothes and a clothed female at the front and from there we can start picking out who’s who, we can identify the girl at the back to be the ‘Alpha female’, and the girl at the front to be the ‘Final Girl’. The van then arrives in front of a mansion, the teenagers enter the mansion and are fascinated by what is in the mansion, by asking Heather what her grandma did for a living. A male character then opens what seems to be a hidden passage and suddenly the mood changes. We can see leather face getting ready to kill, the screen fades to Heather being held by ropes, whilst Leatherface places a chainsaw on her shoulder whilst she screams. Heather then runs into a graveyard and hides in a grave but is discovered by Leatherface.
Pacing: The pace at the beginning is very slow, subtle. Nothing seems to be happening, everyone is happy, they all arrived at the mansion and are all astonished by the inside and we can see that through their NVC and suddenly the pace changes as soon as a male character opens what seems to be a secret room, and we can tell the mood changes due to the change in music and suddenly the atmosphere just feels a lot thicker as though we know that the unlocking of that room was what will lead to their deaths. After that the pace becomes a little quicker than it was before. After seeing Heather screams, the pace becomes much faster.
On screen graphics/captions: It starts off with the production with the name of the production company name “Lionsgate” and “Millennium films” and then it continues on with the film. When the mood changes “1n 1974” “A Legend” fades onto the screen as we hear sounds of a chainsaw. After some flickers “was born” fades unto the screen, and we see Leatherface preparing himself for murder, insinuating he is the legend that was born in 1974. After a couple scenes “this January” fades onto the screen along with music then “It Happened Before” “It’s happening again” which signifies that this is not the first time this has actually happened, as an incident as such has occurred before in that same location.
Release date: 4th January 2013 (UK).
Director: Marcus Nispel.
Production/financing Company: Leatherface productions.
Lionsgate.
Millennium films.
Distributors: Millennium Films.
Lionsgate.
Principal Cast: Alexandra Daddario – Heather Miller.
Dan Yeager – Leatherface.
Trey Songz – Ryan.
Scott Eastwood – Carl.
Tania Raymonde – Nikki.
Shaun Sipos – Darryl.
Karem Malicki-sanchez – Kenny.
Synopsis: After the first massacre in 1974, the townspeople suspected that the Sawyer family were responsible. A vigilante mob of enraged locals surrounded the Sawyer house, burning it to the ground and killing every last member of the family. Decades later, a young woman named Heather learns that she has inherited a Texas estate from her grandmother. She decides to bring her friends along on the road trip to investigate her inheritance. On arrival, she discovers she has inherited a mansion, but is yet to uncover the terrors that lurk in the basement underneath it.
Genre: The sub-genre of this movie is Thriller and slasher.
Narrative: In the begging we see a van and in the van we see 3 characters, in which we see a male at the back with a female in her bra, putting on her clothes and a clothed female at the front and from there we can start picking out who’s who, we can identify the girl at the back to be the ‘Alpha female’, and the girl at the front to be the ‘Final Girl’. The van then arrives in front of a mansion, the teenagers enter the mansion and are fascinated by what is in the mansion, by asking Heather what her grandma did for a living. A male character then opens what seems to be a hidden passage and suddenly the mood changes. We can see leather face getting ready to kill, the screen fades to Heather being held by ropes, whilst Leatherface places a chainsaw on her shoulder whilst she screams. Heather then runs into a graveyard and hides in a grave but is discovered by Leatherface.
Pacing: The pace at the beginning is very slow, subtle. Nothing seems to be happening, everyone is happy, they all arrived at the mansion and are all astonished by the inside and we can see that through their NVC and suddenly the pace changes as soon as a male character opens what seems to be a secret room, and we can tell the mood changes due to the change in music and suddenly the atmosphere just feels a lot thicker as though we know that the unlocking of that room was what will lead to their deaths. After that the pace becomes a little quicker than it was before. After seeing Heather screams, the pace becomes much faster.
On screen graphics/captions: It starts off with the production with the name of the production company name “Lionsgate” and “Millennium films” and then it continues on with the film. When the mood changes “1n 1974” “A Legend” fades onto the screen as we hear sounds of a chainsaw. After some flickers “was born” fades unto the screen, and we see Leatherface preparing himself for murder, insinuating he is the legend that was born in 1974. After a couple scenes “this January” fades onto the screen along with music then “It Happened Before” “It’s happening again” which signifies that this is not the first time this has actually happened, as an incident as such has occurred before in that same location.
Characters: The characters in this trailer follow the normal stereotypes found within slasher horror movies, with a final girl (Heather) who is more clothed than the other girl (Nikki), With Leatherface being the antagonist.
Mise-en-scene:
Setting: Majority of the movie actually takes part in one location, being Heather’s ascribed mansion, but the settings through the trailer changes. It went from inside the mansion to the basement where Leatherface lives, to the garage in a broken car to even outside a funfair and then outside to what seems like a graveyard. It makes us as an audience to think that wherever you are leather face will find you regardless of where you hide, this feeling is set quite strongly throughout the whole trailer.
Mise-en-scene:
Setting: Majority of the movie actually takes part in one location, being Heather’s ascribed mansion, but the settings through the trailer changes. It went from inside the mansion to the basement where Leatherface lives, to the garage in a broken car to even outside a funfair and then outside to what seems like a graveyard. It makes us as an audience to think that wherever you are leather face will find you regardless of where you hide, this feeling is set quite strongly throughout the whole trailer.
Costume: The costume on the trailer never really change, from what they are wearing we can see that they are young teenagers, probably entering university and so on. We don’t really see leather face’s costume much, I think this was done to keep his identity minimal until people actually watched the movie.
Props: The main prop used was a chainsaw, and this is reinforces through the title as it would make sense for the title to be ‘Texas CHAINSAW massacre’ and then the main prop to be a battle axe, the title already gives Leatherface a symbolic prop that can be easily recognised by the audience.
Props: The main prop used was a chainsaw, and this is reinforces through the title as it would make sense for the title to be ‘Texas CHAINSAW massacre’ and then the main prop to be a battle axe, the title already gives Leatherface a symbolic prop that can be easily recognised by the audience.
Jacob Fritze.
Film Title: “Buried”
Release Date: 23 January 2010
Director: Rodrigo Cortés
Production: The Safran Company, Versus Entertainment, Dark Trick Films
Principle cast: Ryan Reynolds
Sub-Genre: Horror-Thriller
Film info: The Director Rodrigo Cortés said in an interview that he was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock.
Synopsis: Paul is an U.S. truck driver working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.
Mise-en scene: The trailer of the film “Buried” starts in a dark looking environment, as well as the audience can only recognize one male person, which is most likely the protagonist. He is imprisoned in a wood looking coffin, which restricts the protagonist’s room for movements to a minimum. Throughout the trailer, he is holding a small lighter, which basically is the only source of light that enables the audience to see the protagonist. The man is looking like an average person; however towards the end of the trailer his costume looks slightly dirtier as well as his face looks sweaty. Also the setting is slightly changing towards the end as more sand gets into the coffin and limits his space. Whereas his facial expressions seem scared and he is panicking in the beginning of the trailer, he seems calmer and is accepting his destiny towards the end. Furthermore he then finds a flashlight and a mobile phone, which changes the lighting of the scene to a red and blue greenish light. In the whole trailer, the audience can see the protagonist as the only person, however he is in a constant dialogue on the phone or to himself.
Camera: The trailer starts with an extreme close up of the protagonist’s right eye, followed by a low angle long where the camera slowly tilts up. This gives the audience an impression of what the setting and surroundings of the protagonist are like. The following sequence of shots show the protagonist from different positions, however all shots are generally close ups or mid shots as well as they are all quite fast paced. After then, the next sequence contains one crane shot that looks down on the protagonist which is quite unusual, as the person is buried, laying in a coffin which makes it impossible to see him out of approximately six metres distance. Furthermore the following shots are all similar to the beginning (close ups and mid shots), however the last shot shows the protagonist again lying in the coffin, out of a high angle with the only difference that the camera now zooms out.
Colour: The colour scheme changes only twice over the whole trailer, which is due to the continuously same setting. When the trailer starts, the audience can see everything in dark brown, black, yellow looking colours. The dominant colour is a warm yellow, which is through the flame of the lighter the protagonist, is holding. Towards the end the colour scheme changes to blue-greenish, as the protagonist found a phone and the display brightness provides him with light. However in the next shot it changes to red because the protagonist found a red flashlight. The last sequence and the ending, however then have the same colour scheme as the beginning.
Typography: During the trailer there are cuts where just writing appears, which is supposed to tell the audience something about the narrative. The font of the writing is easy readable for all age groups, as they use a clear font with no layers of effects over it. Furthermore the words fly after each other onto the screen, which creates a nice looking effect. The title “Buried” is shown in the end of the trailer as bold capital letters, followed by the credits of the film. When writing the credits, the editors highlighted all names in bold capital letters, whereas the reference next to was written in small letters in a different font.
Mood & Styling: The mood of the trailer is quite dark and constraining, which is one of the typical conventions for Horror. Furthermore the protagonist is styled like an average person as he is wearing casual clothes. However the makeup in his face looks like grime, which gives him a quite rough look.
Sound: The trailer starts with a foley sound, which is the sound of when someone turns on a lighter. Furthermore there is a non-diegetic sound, which is supposed to build up tension, as it is quite high pitched. Also every sequence where the audience can see the writing, which is supposed to tell the narrative, is introduced by a sudden hit, which again builds up tension. In the following shots the audience can hear in a diegetic or monologue sound, the protagonist scream for help. At some point in the middle of the trailer there is a score sound, which basically only consists of bongo drums. Furthermore there is another foley sound, when the protagonist found the phone and speaks to the operator. Towards the end the score adds violins, which as well build tension.
Locations: The only location, which the audience is able to see, is the small coffin where the protagonist is imprisoned in.
Narrative: After watching the trailer it is quite obvious that the genre is most likely Thriller, as there is at no point any blood apparent and the audience can’t see any attacker or victims. The storyline is about a male person who is imprisoned into a coffin, buried 6 metres deep in the ground. He will eventually find a phone with a couple of saved numbers in it, which will help him to fight his way out of the coffin.
Editing: The trailer start quite slow paced, as well as the shots take long until they cut to the next one. The second sequence shown looks like a montage, as the protagonist is represented out of different perspectives, shouting continuously for help. After the second sequence the shots are getting faster until the sequence eventually ends with a few quick cuts. Towards the end, the last few cuts are slow again like at the beginning.
Release Date: 23 January 2010
Director: Rodrigo Cortés
Production: The Safran Company, Versus Entertainment, Dark Trick Films
Principle cast: Ryan Reynolds
Sub-Genre: Horror-Thriller
Film info: The Director Rodrigo Cortés said in an interview that he was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock.
Synopsis: Paul is an U.S. truck driver working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.
Mise-en scene: The trailer of the film “Buried” starts in a dark looking environment, as well as the audience can only recognize one male person, which is most likely the protagonist. He is imprisoned in a wood looking coffin, which restricts the protagonist’s room for movements to a minimum. Throughout the trailer, he is holding a small lighter, which basically is the only source of light that enables the audience to see the protagonist. The man is looking like an average person; however towards the end of the trailer his costume looks slightly dirtier as well as his face looks sweaty. Also the setting is slightly changing towards the end as more sand gets into the coffin and limits his space. Whereas his facial expressions seem scared and he is panicking in the beginning of the trailer, he seems calmer and is accepting his destiny towards the end. Furthermore he then finds a flashlight and a mobile phone, which changes the lighting of the scene to a red and blue greenish light. In the whole trailer, the audience can see the protagonist as the only person, however he is in a constant dialogue on the phone or to himself.
Camera: The trailer starts with an extreme close up of the protagonist’s right eye, followed by a low angle long where the camera slowly tilts up. This gives the audience an impression of what the setting and surroundings of the protagonist are like. The following sequence of shots show the protagonist from different positions, however all shots are generally close ups or mid shots as well as they are all quite fast paced. After then, the next sequence contains one crane shot that looks down on the protagonist which is quite unusual, as the person is buried, laying in a coffin which makes it impossible to see him out of approximately six metres distance. Furthermore the following shots are all similar to the beginning (close ups and mid shots), however the last shot shows the protagonist again lying in the coffin, out of a high angle with the only difference that the camera now zooms out.
Colour: The colour scheme changes only twice over the whole trailer, which is due to the continuously same setting. When the trailer starts, the audience can see everything in dark brown, black, yellow looking colours. The dominant colour is a warm yellow, which is through the flame of the lighter the protagonist, is holding. Towards the end the colour scheme changes to blue-greenish, as the protagonist found a phone and the display brightness provides him with light. However in the next shot it changes to red because the protagonist found a red flashlight. The last sequence and the ending, however then have the same colour scheme as the beginning.
Typography: During the trailer there are cuts where just writing appears, which is supposed to tell the audience something about the narrative. The font of the writing is easy readable for all age groups, as they use a clear font with no layers of effects over it. Furthermore the words fly after each other onto the screen, which creates a nice looking effect. The title “Buried” is shown in the end of the trailer as bold capital letters, followed by the credits of the film. When writing the credits, the editors highlighted all names in bold capital letters, whereas the reference next to was written in small letters in a different font.
Mood & Styling: The mood of the trailer is quite dark and constraining, which is one of the typical conventions for Horror. Furthermore the protagonist is styled like an average person as he is wearing casual clothes. However the makeup in his face looks like grime, which gives him a quite rough look.
Sound: The trailer starts with a foley sound, which is the sound of when someone turns on a lighter. Furthermore there is a non-diegetic sound, which is supposed to build up tension, as it is quite high pitched. Also every sequence where the audience can see the writing, which is supposed to tell the narrative, is introduced by a sudden hit, which again builds up tension. In the following shots the audience can hear in a diegetic or monologue sound, the protagonist scream for help. At some point in the middle of the trailer there is a score sound, which basically only consists of bongo drums. Furthermore there is another foley sound, when the protagonist found the phone and speaks to the operator. Towards the end the score adds violins, which as well build tension.
Locations: The only location, which the audience is able to see, is the small coffin where the protagonist is imprisoned in.
Narrative: After watching the trailer it is quite obvious that the genre is most likely Thriller, as there is at no point any blood apparent and the audience can’t see any attacker or victims. The storyline is about a male person who is imprisoned into a coffin, buried 6 metres deep in the ground. He will eventually find a phone with a couple of saved numbers in it, which will help him to fight his way out of the coffin.
Editing: The trailer start quite slow paced, as well as the shots take long until they cut to the next one. The second sequence shown looks like a montage, as the protagonist is represented out of different perspectives, shouting continuously for help. After the second sequence the shots are getting faster until the sequence eventually ends with a few quick cuts. Towards the end, the last few cuts are slow again like at the beginning.
Fadeke Faluyi.
Film title: Insidious
Release date: September 14, 2010
Director: James Wan
Produced by: James Blum, Oren Peli and Steven Schneider
Principle Cast:
·Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert
·Josh Feldman as young Josh
·Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert
·Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert
Synopsis: Married couple, Josh and Renai, have recently moved into an old house with their two children, two young boys and a new baby. Characters are portrayed and introduced to the audience very clearly at the start of the trailer. A happy family they are, they individually consist of characteristics that convey a normal family. The mother being the stay at home housewife, the husband being the loving father and is constantly working, the young boys being curious and experimental and the baby being a stressful, innocent child. Despite their recent move, supernatural events begin to emerge as they family settle in. Renai is the first person in the family to notice these occurrences, with an oblivious husband; she is portrayed as a helpless female who is victimised due to her lonesome and vulnerability as a woman. To her dismay, Dalton is put into a coma after falling off a ladder and bumping his head. Three months in and there are no signs of change as Dalton does not wake up. After several supernatural occurrences, which causes Renai to be mentally vulnerable, Josh finally gives in and the family makes a move into the new home. Despite their attempt to make these events stop, they seem to continuously happen. This results in Renai calling Lorraine’s friend, a women who specialises in paranormal activity. She explains the deepest, most traumatic reason to all the events happening… it isn’t the house that’s haunted, it’s Dalton. With this, comes the understanding that Dalton has the ability to astral project, meaning his soul can leave his physical body, leaving it as an open vault to other spirits in another world to use as a way to inflict pain on others, such as the red faced figure described as having “fire on his face”. With Josh finally coming to terms with all the drama, he gets put to sleep where he goes through an obstacle of spirits in the lurk in order to bring Dalton back into the real world. However, it doesn’t come that simple. This result in spirits in the other world, entering the real world, where Josh is later discovered by Elise, the woman called to fix the issue, that he has been possessed by a spirit that followed him as a child.
Genre: The genre of the film lies under the psychological/supernatural sub-genre which does not consist of any specific style. This is due to the fact that many of the films that are under the same genre are based on similar story lines- with demons and evil spirits attacking people with normal lives in the existing world. In contrast to the typical and common style, insidious holds a unique difference, in the fact that the demon in the movie possesses a young child, which enables Insidious to standout; however the rest of the conventions are followed such as other film which were made by the same makers- Paranormal activity.
Narrative: The story is told in consecutive order with a beginning, middle and end. The beginning consists of an establishing shot, where the setting and location of the film is shown, with the family doing very normal activities such as Josh playing with their new born baby and his NVC, smiling, indicates happiness and normality. As the trailer continues, the story line begins to unravel, without revealing too much about the film, with the ending showing the fear and obstacle that the family goes through while the supernatural events occur.
Location: The setting of the film is shown to the audiences immediately, a beautiful old house. The family is then shown inside the house, with a tour of the rooms and the spiral stair case. Young Josh is seen in the attic where his accident occurs, which puts him in the second location besides the home, indicating an important part as to why he becomes possessed. The fact he falls down gets into a coma and suddenly has the ability to astral project with demons being able to possess him after scenes of a normal home life, creates a playful attempt to cause paranoia for the audiences watching the film.
Characters: The characters are all given individual personalities in the film. Josh is the loving father, Renai is the housewife and caring mother, the young boys are typical children and the baby to indicate a happy home. The audience are shown that he is a working man, through the way he dresses. His suit, tie and suitcase indicate an upper class family due to the idea that they make enough money to move homes so often. This represents a highly skilled job, enabling the representation of the white ethnicity to convey that despite their social class, they are presented as a caring family that work hard for what they have; portraying a sense of innocence and vulnerability to which is played upon and taken advantage of by dark forces such as evil spirits and demons.
Voice over: No voice overs are featured in this trailer.
Theme: A theme the film consists of is demonic possession inflicted upon a normal family household, mainly the young child which is an important factor to why the film is so scary.
Pacing: The pace in the trailer is varied. With the beginning starting off with a slow pace, in parallel to the ticking of the clock in order to create suspense, building a lot of tension to enable to jump scares to work at their fullest as they are unexpected. As the story line reveals itself slowly, the pace builds up with the ending having fast paced cuts of different events in order to engage and excite as well as intrigue the audience.
On-screen graphics/captions: The main caption “Insidious” was repeated after the first few shots in the trailer. The definition of Insidious is “awaiting a chance to entrap”. This indicates that the make of the trailer repeatedly put the caption after many shots in order to convey to the audiences that the demonic possession could occur at anytime, anywhere to anyone. As well as the fact that it is used as a technique to enable the audience to remember and recognise the characters and name of the film. With several flickers of frightened and afraid NVC from the characters this connotes that the fear of demonic possession is so powerful in the film that it shows how scary the film actually is, appealing to their target audience well. With this, comes the constant play on words from “insidious is” to “is insidious”, used to confuse and baffle the audiences as to wanting to find out more about what happens, as well as causing paranoia as to how the film could relate to them in the existing world- following a convention of horror. The captions consist of white sans Serif font against a contrasting black background, enabling the caption to be seen clearly and to be acknowledged and remembered in an instant.
Editing and post production: The use of fast cut is consistent in the trailer used to work with the build-up of tension towards the audience. This enables the audiences to engage and keep interested on the upcoming events in the trailer in order to want to know more about the storyline. The fast cuts create a thrill and excitement to the trailer, which can connote the overall feeling of the actual film, suggesting that the film is a MUST see film. With the storyline unravelling, the fast cuts indicate a sense of danger to thrill the audience in order to create the lead to the main part of the storyline. Make up was used in replacement of CGI to create a creepy edge to the ghostly faces as well as an edge that causes the faces to look still life and robotic. Make up was used by the makers to create a more real life effect, a technique that can be used in the existing world rather than high level of technology to create a realistic look which enabled such success despite the low budget the film had.
Music and sound: The slow ticking was an opening of the trailer, followed by a much heavier bass as the story unfolded, connoting that danger was right around the corner waiting to scare thee audience unexpectedly. A sudden change is beat began, indicating something important and shocking was going to occur at any given time. The non-diegetic sound is used in order to only allow the audiences to hear, as this would create tension for the audiences and engage into what is happening in the film.
Camerawork: There is a lot of camera work used in the trailer. These consist of medium close ups, wide shots, medium long shots, and over the shoulder shots. The medium close up in the hospital scene, enabled the audience to see the fear and worried NVC from the parents with a cut to an over the shoulder shot of Dalton in hospital. A low angle shot looking up at the staircase/ room with constant cuts from that to a bird’s eye view of Renai picking up the prop of a baby monitor indicates how vulnerable she is when she is alone dealing with such occurrences while her husband is working, as well as the vulnerability of young children such as the baby. A wide shot in Daltons room as Josh and Renai burst in after hearing screams, to find blood covered hand prints on his bed sheets, indicates the danger that his family and Dalton are in due to the demons and evil spirits lurking. Despite Renai being presented as a woman dealing with these issues alone, we can see clearly in this shot that Josh supports her and as a family they are dealing with the issue, alongside Josh’s mother Loraine, shown in a medium long shot.
Release date: September 14, 2010
Director: James Wan
Produced by: James Blum, Oren Peli and Steven Schneider
Principle Cast:
·Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert
·Josh Feldman as young Josh
·Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert
·Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert
Synopsis: Married couple, Josh and Renai, have recently moved into an old house with their two children, two young boys and a new baby. Characters are portrayed and introduced to the audience very clearly at the start of the trailer. A happy family they are, they individually consist of characteristics that convey a normal family. The mother being the stay at home housewife, the husband being the loving father and is constantly working, the young boys being curious and experimental and the baby being a stressful, innocent child. Despite their recent move, supernatural events begin to emerge as they family settle in. Renai is the first person in the family to notice these occurrences, with an oblivious husband; she is portrayed as a helpless female who is victimised due to her lonesome and vulnerability as a woman. To her dismay, Dalton is put into a coma after falling off a ladder and bumping his head. Three months in and there are no signs of change as Dalton does not wake up. After several supernatural occurrences, which causes Renai to be mentally vulnerable, Josh finally gives in and the family makes a move into the new home. Despite their attempt to make these events stop, they seem to continuously happen. This results in Renai calling Lorraine’s friend, a women who specialises in paranormal activity. She explains the deepest, most traumatic reason to all the events happening… it isn’t the house that’s haunted, it’s Dalton. With this, comes the understanding that Dalton has the ability to astral project, meaning his soul can leave his physical body, leaving it as an open vault to other spirits in another world to use as a way to inflict pain on others, such as the red faced figure described as having “fire on his face”. With Josh finally coming to terms with all the drama, he gets put to sleep where he goes through an obstacle of spirits in the lurk in order to bring Dalton back into the real world. However, it doesn’t come that simple. This result in spirits in the other world, entering the real world, where Josh is later discovered by Elise, the woman called to fix the issue, that he has been possessed by a spirit that followed him as a child.
Genre: The genre of the film lies under the psychological/supernatural sub-genre which does not consist of any specific style. This is due to the fact that many of the films that are under the same genre are based on similar story lines- with demons and evil spirits attacking people with normal lives in the existing world. In contrast to the typical and common style, insidious holds a unique difference, in the fact that the demon in the movie possesses a young child, which enables Insidious to standout; however the rest of the conventions are followed such as other film which were made by the same makers- Paranormal activity.
Narrative: The story is told in consecutive order with a beginning, middle and end. The beginning consists of an establishing shot, where the setting and location of the film is shown, with the family doing very normal activities such as Josh playing with their new born baby and his NVC, smiling, indicates happiness and normality. As the trailer continues, the story line begins to unravel, without revealing too much about the film, with the ending showing the fear and obstacle that the family goes through while the supernatural events occur.
Location: The setting of the film is shown to the audiences immediately, a beautiful old house. The family is then shown inside the house, with a tour of the rooms and the spiral stair case. Young Josh is seen in the attic where his accident occurs, which puts him in the second location besides the home, indicating an important part as to why he becomes possessed. The fact he falls down gets into a coma and suddenly has the ability to astral project with demons being able to possess him after scenes of a normal home life, creates a playful attempt to cause paranoia for the audiences watching the film.
Characters: The characters are all given individual personalities in the film. Josh is the loving father, Renai is the housewife and caring mother, the young boys are typical children and the baby to indicate a happy home. The audience are shown that he is a working man, through the way he dresses. His suit, tie and suitcase indicate an upper class family due to the idea that they make enough money to move homes so often. This represents a highly skilled job, enabling the representation of the white ethnicity to convey that despite their social class, they are presented as a caring family that work hard for what they have; portraying a sense of innocence and vulnerability to which is played upon and taken advantage of by dark forces such as evil spirits and demons.
Voice over: No voice overs are featured in this trailer.
Theme: A theme the film consists of is demonic possession inflicted upon a normal family household, mainly the young child which is an important factor to why the film is so scary.
Pacing: The pace in the trailer is varied. With the beginning starting off with a slow pace, in parallel to the ticking of the clock in order to create suspense, building a lot of tension to enable to jump scares to work at their fullest as they are unexpected. As the story line reveals itself slowly, the pace builds up with the ending having fast paced cuts of different events in order to engage and excite as well as intrigue the audience.
On-screen graphics/captions: The main caption “Insidious” was repeated after the first few shots in the trailer. The definition of Insidious is “awaiting a chance to entrap”. This indicates that the make of the trailer repeatedly put the caption after many shots in order to convey to the audiences that the demonic possession could occur at anytime, anywhere to anyone. As well as the fact that it is used as a technique to enable the audience to remember and recognise the characters and name of the film. With several flickers of frightened and afraid NVC from the characters this connotes that the fear of demonic possession is so powerful in the film that it shows how scary the film actually is, appealing to their target audience well. With this, comes the constant play on words from “insidious is” to “is insidious”, used to confuse and baffle the audiences as to wanting to find out more about what happens, as well as causing paranoia as to how the film could relate to them in the existing world- following a convention of horror. The captions consist of white sans Serif font against a contrasting black background, enabling the caption to be seen clearly and to be acknowledged and remembered in an instant.
Editing and post production: The use of fast cut is consistent in the trailer used to work with the build-up of tension towards the audience. This enables the audiences to engage and keep interested on the upcoming events in the trailer in order to want to know more about the storyline. The fast cuts create a thrill and excitement to the trailer, which can connote the overall feeling of the actual film, suggesting that the film is a MUST see film. With the storyline unravelling, the fast cuts indicate a sense of danger to thrill the audience in order to create the lead to the main part of the storyline. Make up was used in replacement of CGI to create a creepy edge to the ghostly faces as well as an edge that causes the faces to look still life and robotic. Make up was used by the makers to create a more real life effect, a technique that can be used in the existing world rather than high level of technology to create a realistic look which enabled such success despite the low budget the film had.
Music and sound: The slow ticking was an opening of the trailer, followed by a much heavier bass as the story unfolded, connoting that danger was right around the corner waiting to scare thee audience unexpectedly. A sudden change is beat began, indicating something important and shocking was going to occur at any given time. The non-diegetic sound is used in order to only allow the audiences to hear, as this would create tension for the audiences and engage into what is happening in the film.
Camerawork: There is a lot of camera work used in the trailer. These consist of medium close ups, wide shots, medium long shots, and over the shoulder shots. The medium close up in the hospital scene, enabled the audience to see the fear and worried NVC from the parents with a cut to an over the shoulder shot of Dalton in hospital. A low angle shot looking up at the staircase/ room with constant cuts from that to a bird’s eye view of Renai picking up the prop of a baby monitor indicates how vulnerable she is when she is alone dealing with such occurrences while her husband is working, as well as the vulnerability of young children such as the baby. A wide shot in Daltons room as Josh and Renai burst in after hearing screams, to find blood covered hand prints on his bed sheets, indicates the danger that his family and Dalton are in due to the demons and evil spirits lurking. Despite Renai being presented as a woman dealing with these issues alone, we can see clearly in this shot that Josh supports her and as a family they are dealing with the issue, alongside Josh’s mother Loraine, shown in a medium long shot.
Eugene Neil.
Film Title: As Above So Below
Release date: 29th August 2014
Sub-Genre: Horror, thriller
Film Info: This film is based on the catacombs buried under the streets of France. Catacombs are human-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb
Synopsis: When a team of explorers ventures into the catacombs that lie beneath the streets of Paris, they uncover the dark secret that lies within this city of the dead.
Remake: I don’t think that this has been remade yet as this is quite a new movie.
Detailed analysis of Trailer: Firstly the colour used throughout the whole trailer is quite dark and dull, this is because the film is based on an underground graveyard. I believe that the use of dull colours was done intentionally to create a tense and scary atmosphere, this in turn makes it easier to get scares from the audience because the tense atmosphere was already set with the colours.
Mise-en-scene:
The mise-en-scene used within the trailer stand out quite a lot, the NVC used within the trailer stands out because even when the characters are not talking there still seems to be a tense feeling. Most scenes have a use of NVC e.g. when they hear a noise, they create a feeling like they are scared and in turn this makes the audience and it also creates a sense of suspense.
As I said the setting is underground in a very old graveyard that has various different skeletons and dead people. The costume and the props used a simple e.g. the characters are dressed in casual clothing and they all have a flashlight, this prop (flashlight) is a very clever as this is sometimes the only source of light that the group have, this again creates suspense as it leaves the audience wondering what is surrounding the characters.
There are a lot of different shots used within the trailer his includes cuts, quick cuts (this creates tension and it makes the audience feel a sense of panic).
The typography is basic but is does the job of creating tension, the fact that the writing is in red gives us the feeling that something bad is about to happen as red connotes danger and death.
The tagline used is “your past will haunt you”, this I quite creepy as it leaves the audience thinking what does that mean because everyone has a past. I think that fact that is seems real like the Blair Witch Project makes it sell and I think this is what makes people want to see this movies as it seems real.
The Mood that the trailer sets is very tense and provocative, I believe that the trailer achieved what it wanted to do i.e. it makes people want to watch the film.
Release date: 29th August 2014
Sub-Genre: Horror, thriller
Film Info: This film is based on the catacombs buried under the streets of France. Catacombs are human-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place is a catacomb
Synopsis: When a team of explorers ventures into the catacombs that lie beneath the streets of Paris, they uncover the dark secret that lies within this city of the dead.
Remake: I don’t think that this has been remade yet as this is quite a new movie.
Detailed analysis of Trailer: Firstly the colour used throughout the whole trailer is quite dark and dull, this is because the film is based on an underground graveyard. I believe that the use of dull colours was done intentionally to create a tense and scary atmosphere, this in turn makes it easier to get scares from the audience because the tense atmosphere was already set with the colours.
Mise-en-scene:
The mise-en-scene used within the trailer stand out quite a lot, the NVC used within the trailer stands out because even when the characters are not talking there still seems to be a tense feeling. Most scenes have a use of NVC e.g. when they hear a noise, they create a feeling like they are scared and in turn this makes the audience and it also creates a sense of suspense.
As I said the setting is underground in a very old graveyard that has various different skeletons and dead people. The costume and the props used a simple e.g. the characters are dressed in casual clothing and they all have a flashlight, this prop (flashlight) is a very clever as this is sometimes the only source of light that the group have, this again creates suspense as it leaves the audience wondering what is surrounding the characters.
There are a lot of different shots used within the trailer his includes cuts, quick cuts (this creates tension and it makes the audience feel a sense of panic).
The typography is basic but is does the job of creating tension, the fact that the writing is in red gives us the feeling that something bad is about to happen as red connotes danger and death.
The tagline used is “your past will haunt you”, this I quite creepy as it leaves the audience thinking what does that mean because everyone has a past. I think that fact that is seems real like the Blair Witch Project makes it sell and I think this is what makes people want to see this movies as it seems real.
The Mood that the trailer sets is very tense and provocative, I believe that the trailer achieved what it wanted to do i.e. it makes people want to watch the film.