Thursday, 16 April 2015

Horror trailer analysis




  • Starts with disruption, this clearly shows the audience what genre this film will be 
  • Narrative carries on to explain the lives on the main characters and their story 
  • Bit of background information is given 
  • states it's based on a true story (gets the audience thinking that this could really happen)
  • Soundtrack begins to link the montage of images together 
  • Music fades away and the sound of the clock which is shown on screen is highlighted to build up tension for the audience for the jump scare
  • loud sound effects are used to emphasis this jump
  • fast pace montage of disruption happening around the house builds up tension for the audience
  • voice over of main character is used to to explain narrative to viewers
  • all sound stops before loud sounds are brought back suddenly to create a scare 
  • trailer ends by the name of the movie being shown on film suggesting the trailer is over but then a clip is shown at the end with no soundtrack to create tension, the biggest jump scare is left for here to leave the audience thinking this will be what the whole film is like and so it will stay in their memory. 




  • Starts in the dark of night when things seem ok
  • but quickly things turn badly 
  • background jumpy music is played to build tension and there's a fast pace montage of disruption to help with this
  • gentle music is played as the characters are shown after the disruption to be alright and these scenes are used to help establish the characters/narrative more 
  • things go quiet to build tension 
  • Record player starts playing music on its own to show the haunting on this family, this music is used as the soundtrack to build tension as it seems very repetitive and creepy
  • montages between dolls face and character being prayed on to show that this object is the one causing the happenings 
  • slow high pitched noise played to build tension and cuts out to increase this before jumps scares 
  • ends on the biggest scare throughout the trailer 
  • then titles are shown 




  • starts with establishing scenes to explain narrative 
  • montage of shots against voice over explaining it all
  • creepy music played when strange happenings are being talked about 
  • most scenes in dark 
  •  a lot of scenes just explaining narratives with no jump scares until the end, not many actual creatures shown just the mysterious happenings which is scarier for the viewers due to the fear of the unknown
  • high pitched creepy music builds tension, no actual songs played just sound effects which is unsettling for the audience as there are no sounds they recognize 
  • ends on high pitched girl screaming when the titles are being played showing how the film is likely to end/how the narrative will unfold


Throughout this research i have learnt an understanding of conventions within theses 3 horror trailers that work the best and would be best to use in our trailer to attract the largest audience possible. I now realize what points are most important to create a trailer which is likely to give the most jump scares to the audience, these are widely used in these trailers which shows how they are effective into enticing an audience into watching the film. Points that i am going to try to interpret into our trailers are things such as much of the film being in the dark of nighttime to create the fear of the unknown, soundtracks which will create tension and cause the audience to feel uneasy and the effect of speeding up the pace of the shot changes to create fast pace montages to also build up tension.

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