2. Evaluation PT. 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge terms and conventions of
real life media products.
The first reason as to why my horror trailers fit the horror genre is its non-linear sequence. A horror trailer that follows
this non-linear sequence is Eden Lake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9kuMFPW0YI
This is extremely important when filming a trailer as the trailer shouldn’t give too much of the narrative away. I believe
my trailer does this very well. For example, whether Frankie will survive after being dragged across the floor and out of
the shots view, or what is happening to Ryan when he is face to face with the camera. All the events in the denouement
of my horror trailer are non-linear and contain only the basis of what my film would. This successfully teases the
audience, encouraging them to watch the full film to find out the full plot details.
In terms of uses inspiration from real life products, my horror trailer also uses conventions such as colour to portray the
horror genre. Our trailer is dark and gloomy and conveys horror by using this melancholy and ‘low key’ colour scheme.
Diegetic sound was also used within my horror trailer this is sound that is within the ‘film world’. An example of this
within my horror trailer would be both Libby and Frankie screaming when they are attacked. Extra-diegetic music is
added to certain points within the trailer, for example, when the sequence speeds up, this emphasis the diegetic sound.
In terms of mise-en-scene, our horror trailer contained traditional gore elements, for example our gory makeup. For
gore elements we used traditional makeup such as white face paint, blood packs and red paint. We also used the
grenadine syrup or ‘Bottle of Blood; for blood spills and squirt to create an oozing blood effect. The ordinary clothing
that our media filming crew used was to show that the mundane setting of everyday life had been interrupted and
disturbed by this obscure haunting. In many way, our trailer resembled films such as Evil Dead (2013). A scene where
gore is used well in Evil dead is when one of the main girls is attacked by a something paranormal, here it is suggested
that she is being raped by a tree, this scene shows a good use of gore.
3. Throughout the entire trailer, intertitles are used to explain the narrative. This helps to easily distinguish between the
different settings and what is going on within the scene. We did this without making the trailer look disjointed or
deformed. We used intertitles and based them on the text from Evil Dead (2013), we did this to create a sense of
darkness spreading like the shadows of trees.
As with all trailers and horror films, editing was vital to our trailer. We started our trailer with a slow montage
reminiscent of the scenes building up the shower scene in Psycho. We created this by slowly establishing the isolated
location because the shocking moments are at the end. Towards the end of our final chapter, after all the gore and
quick paced shots, there is a shock ending where one of our survivors (Libby) is holding another survivor’s (Frankie’s)
mouth. Once Libby moves around to see what’s going on behind her, she turns back revealing to our audience that she
is no longer holding the victims mouth, she is in fact holding the dead girl’s mouth. This is a jump scare and is
emphasised by the diegetic scream and extra-diegetic sting.
In terms of auteurs, we primarily took our inspiration from the auteur George A. Romero. Although we did not used the
classic zombie apocalypse we used his idea of a group of individuals fighting to survive. We believed the idea of group
disaster was a brilliant idea in making a slasher movie with a psychological twist. I believe my influence on the film was
the more gore element. I believe to make a successful psychological trailer, it still has to have an element of gore to
generate brief shocks. I also believe I brought an element of feminism. The final girl is in fact blonde, not just the victim.
The killer is also a strong, brunette woman. A film that resembles our trailer is The Descent (2005) as it is an almost all
female casted horror film, just like ours. ‘Female gaze’ is also a huge feminist point within our trailer. This is because it’s
a female killer spying on the teenagers as they arrive. This is an adaption of Laura Mulveys ‘Male Gaze’ theory, which is
set out in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.
4. • Yet despite our creation of gore effects, our plans also clearly suggested our interest in
psychological horror. So although we did use gore in our horror trailer, it was not explicit and did
not give too much of the film away: this is called restricted narration, a scene where this is used is
when i am seen biting at the knife, this scene doesn’t give any idea of who I am or why I am there.
This again showed the importance of genre in creating a horror film, based on the theories we had
studied by Thomas Schatz in his book Hollywood Genres (1981). If we followed enough
conventions, we increased our chance of making a successful trailer.
• To get a full overview of different types of horror trailers and conventions, we watched and
reviewed many trailers across all horror sub-genres and from different times. These trailers
included older films such as Psycho (1960) and newer horror trailers such as The Haunting in
Connecticut (2009). This helped us as a group to understand the change in horror over the years
but also what had stayed the same and was vital to create a good horror trailer.
• Newer trailers used shorter takes to create a faster pace. This helped us construct our
contemporary horror trailer. Our trailer for The Demented begins with a journey into the woods
with a group of friends, then we are shown the car from another person’s point of view, suggesting
the group is being watched. The beginning of our trailer starts of slow, with longer scenes, as it
reaches the climax, the horror trailer speeds up and begins to unravel what the group has found
out about this mysterious place. An example of a real life trailer that starts in the same way as our
trailer is Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark (2010) and this trailer clearly starts the same way our trailer
does.
