Sinister (2012) Trailer Review (Solo)

Name of film : Sinister

Year released : 2012

Genre of trailer : Mystery thriller

Your mark (after viewing) : 10/10

What happened in the trailer?
We are told that a family were murdered as the camera is showing us a house. 9 months later we see another family move to this same house. Whilst moving some boxes, the father finds some 8mm home movies in the attic from the family who had previously lived there. He watches them and forms the idea that it has something to do with a serial murder from the 60’s to which he later finds out are all linked by a symbol of a pagan deity who consumes the souls of children. We then see this pagan character in their swimming pool and the father then sees the figure in the woodland at the back of their house. The young girl in the family paints a picture on a wall of a little girl who used to live there. The father then finds his son in a cardboard box screaming as though he is possessed. Due to these terrifying events, the father then burns all the old home movies and orders his wife to get the kids and all get out of there. However they seem to be trapped in their own home as we see more paranormal affairs unfold including a group of dead-looking children sitting in the attic where the pagan deity then jumps straight in front of the camera to finish the trailer.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

There are many good jump scenes in this trailer. For example, at 1:23 when the father hold up the picture of the woodland with the pagan character lurking in it, then takes it down to reveal the killer standing in the exact same place. There is a sudden burst of sound which makes the audience jump. They then make an association between the scary sound and the pagan killer. The trailer sets the narrative well and also distinguishes a well recognisable serial killer. It establishes the plot well through good use of inter-title. The font is capitalised and easy to read and fits well against the background used and the genre of the trailer. There are some effective transitions used from shot to another such as the flickering images at 1:48. This almost acts a flashback as we quickly see the young girl who used to live in the house playing on their swing in the garden. This adds a different technique of moving from one shot to another, other than a fade or a straight cut.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

I have given this trailer a 10 out of 10 so there are no major aspects that I can complain about. However some may say that children dying is too much of a sensitive subject but, for me, this just feeds into the typical horror themes. I can see how, contextually, British audiences may be unsettled by this due to the happenings of family deaths. For example, the case of the Philpott’s in 2012 who burnt their house down in Derby with their 6 children in it. From my standpoint, though, the director has appealed to its target audience so if some viewers are put off by the main subject then they have a choice not to watch it.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010) Trailer Review (Solo)

Name of film : Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Year released : 2010

Genre of trailer : Comedy

Your mark (after viewing) : 8/10

 

What happened in the trailer?

In this redband trailer we see a group of teenagers driving along the road in a truck when they are passed by two men in another truck who look stereotypically like “hillbillies.” The group of teenagers end up in the woods where they go skinny dipping during the evening. One of the blonde characters falls in the lake which is also being occupied by the two men who are fishing. They see her fall and drag her into their boat to rescue her; however her on looking friends think they’ve captured her. The two men take her to their cabin and look after her while she rests her injured head. Her friends try to get her back but misunderstand the situation by thinking she is digging her own grave when in fact she had offered to help them dig a hole. Her friends end up killing themselves whilst attempting to save her by running into branches, falling in the wood chopper and one even shoots themself. The two men believe the group is on a suicide attack whereas the group think the men are plotting to kill each of them off. The trailer ends with one of the hillbilly’s laying on the floor with half a dead body on top of him, only to be dragged off across his face by the other hillbilly.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

The trailer establishes the characters well; we know who is who and what role they are playing in the film. Although, according to typical horror conventions, the blonde female character should be the ditzy one who dies but in this trailer the main blonde character appears to be independent and not worried about doing psychical work. We do not know from the trailer if she survives until the end but it is implied that she will. The trailer is comedic but with added gore which will draw audiences in who like the comedy/gore hybrid genre of horror. The body horror effects are realistic and believable which will entice the audience further. I like the idea of making a comedy horror trailer but however feel it is hard to tap into what makes a good comedy piece so will probably venture away from this genre.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

One negative point I could make with this is that it could potentially alienate some audiences due to it being so gory. From the trailer you can distinguish a certain amount of gore but primarily it is a comedy so a viewer may buy the film thinking it’s more of a comedy and be put off by the gore. I was not so keen on the font used in the inter-titles as it looked a little bit cheesy. I also felt that the actual vocabulary used was not entirely necessary as the wording didn’t really help establish the narrative. From watching this, I feel I would more than likely stay away from making a gory horror trailer due to the fact that I want to be able to appeal to the widest range of audiences possible.

 

 

 

 

 

The Woman In Black (2012) Trailer Review (Solo)

Name of film : The Woman In Black

Year released : 2012

Genre of trailer : Psychological horror

Your mark (after viewing) : 9/10

 

What happened in the trailer?
The trailer begins with a male character sitting staring gloomily out of the window. There is a man speaking over the top saying “So, you’re from London, trying to sell Eel Marsh House” whilst we see the outside of an old looking house, assuming it is the house that is being spoken about. We see various images of the marsh land surrounding the house along with the character travelling towards it on a horse and cart. There is a non-diegetic sound of a piano playing along with a diegetic sound of a creaking noise when the character opens the door of the house. We see him explore the house and find him looking through an old fashioned zoetrope. The first jump moment happens here as he sees a woman’s face for a split second through the gaps of the zoetrope. There is a screeching noise to accompany it making the audience jump. There is then a quick montage of shots where we see a house on fire in the village and the main character explaining that he can’t leave yet even though people are continuously warning him to. We see children walking through the marsh whilst the character watches on. There is use of pathetic fallacy here as it is a stormy night which is then reflected in the character’s face and mood. We then see him carrying his son, it then cuts to him ripping off wallpaper to reveal the words “you could have saved him” so we presume it means his son. There is then another quick montage of shots inside Eel Marsh House showing the frantic and worried main character. The main title appears on screen and the trailer ends with the main character placing his hand on a misted up window to get a shock when a screaming woman’s face appears on the other side.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

There were many positive aspects in this trailer. For example it sets the narrative well through use of clear and descriptive inter-titles. There are many jumps scenes which informs the audience as to what genre of horror the film will be. The music and sounds effects are used appropriately and work well in conjunction with the images they are used with. The music builds as the trailer gets more frantic which causes increasing tension for the audience and makes them feel on edge. There are many typical horror conventions used including plenty of low key lighting throughout and a creepy location being Eel Marsh House. There are also plenty of close-ups and great quick montages used to emphasize the drama.

 

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

I found it hard to pick out any major aspects of this trailer that were unsuccessful as it fulfilled many typical horror conventions and left me feeling on edge but wanting to see more. Nevertheless there were perhaps slightly too many jumps as it gave a lot away in terms of the plot so the audience may be left underwhelmed by the full film.

Mood Board

Click on the link below the image to take you to Flickr where you can hover over the image and view the analysis.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94397512@N03/8595506094/in/photostream
 

Feedback From Rough Cut

Here is the feedback we received from the class in our focus group screening of our rough cut trailer. The "x2" (for example) shows how many people said the same thing.

 

The scores we received are :  
7/10 – 4 people
8/10 – 6 people
9/10 – 3 people

 

 

What did you like about the trailer?

Soundtrack worked really well all the way through x4

Nice use of collision cutting

Good screeches when slender is present x2

The sound effects work well (sets a creepy tone), especially heartbeat in background x3
Cool fades

Cool props – notes in the wood
The evil thing is really good! Looks really scary and believable
The end few shots are great x2
Had good jumps at various points x4
Camera angles were good x3
Good shots, quick editing
Really like the sound track mixed with horror style noises x4
Good shots where the car runs over the faded man
Good costume x2
The establishing shot at beginning was good – pan/tracking x2
The narrative was well established

What do you think could be improved in the trailer?
Inter-titles need work (different font, better wording) x5
More plot to fully understand the narrative, maybe more dialogue x3
Make the slender man ‘ghost’ more visible
The music didn’t work all the way through, used it too much x4
Lighting is quite high key, not scary enough x2
The bit just before ‘I can’t run’ the music is too happy
Needs to have more close ups of the monster
Needs an effect or something at the end
Night scene would be interesting
Not enough jumpy scenes
Fades at the start need to be less frequent/slower

Rough Cut Of Trailer : Blank

Here is our rough cut of our psychological horror trailer, Blank. From our focus group screening, we can now determine which aspects need changing to improve it.

DOTD (1979) First Image Analysis

 

 

This scene from Dawn of The Dead (1979) demonstrates how inadequate Stephen is as being a dominant male hero. He continuously shoots a zombie in the stomach, failing to kill it. Roger walks up, pushes Stephen’s gun away and fires one shot to the zombie’s head, killing the zombie straight away. The pushing away of the gun is a phallic signal and shows Roger’s power over Stephen.  Stephen then messes up again afterwards as he attempts to shoot a zombie to save Roger, but misses and the bullet ends up skimming past Peter instead. This scene shows the importance of Andrew Sarris’ auteur theory as George A. Romero’s influence is key as to why this scene is so distinctive, with the short Roger having more power than the taller, more attractive Stephen. Here we see Romero’s auteur tendency to flip expectations of characters because in a standard film, the good looking TV traffic reporter would be the hero. However in this case, Stephen is an inadequate character and continues to be until his death in the mall due to his greedy possessiveness (“It’s ours. We took it.”).

DOTD (1979) Second Image Analysis

 

This mise-en-scene from Dawn Of The Dead (1979) is another clear example of Romero’s auteur style. This time, it reflects his obsession with consumerism in the 1970s. He always attempts to link his films to the context of the time, which in this case is the phenomenon of the opening of shopping malls. Romero really focussed on this, exaggerated it, and then made it a clear aspect of the film. This scene shows zombies aimlessly wandering around the mall; connoting us and how we function as consumers in the real world. A quote from Peter expresses this; “They’re us. That’s all.” Romero was a strong believer of responding to his audience and their behaviours, which is in conjunction with critic Janet Staiger’s “Audience Studies” who viewed audiences as the primary way to analyse films. Romero powerfully responds to his audience by almost attacking them in an attempt to get viewers in 1979 to acknowledge the fact that consumerism perhaps isn’t as wonderful as they thought.

Romero’s thematic tendency to heavily relate to historical context was seen as early as Night Of The Living Dead (NOTD, 1968), his first zombie film. Racist attitudes were very apparent in the 60’s in Southern America where NOTD was filmed; however Romero was greatly against this so created a character of which we could feel sympathy towards. The main character, Ben, was black and survived the zombies onslaught the cabin. However, he eventually gets shot by the group of selfish rednecks, implicating the point that the small minded rednecks were racist. Ben is clearly the hero of the film and we are devastated by his death. This links to what was happening in the late 60’s in the southern states of America. The African-American Civil Rights Movement was at its peak so black people were finally making a stand for themselves and fighting back against segregation and racism. Romero demonstrated how he was all for black civil rights by having a black character who survives until his untimely death at the hands of bigoted “rednecks.”

 

DOTD (1979) Third Image Analysis

This screenshot is from the final scene of Dawn Of The Dead (1979) in which we see Fran and Peter escape and fly away from the zombie filled mall. Romero is half Cuban and hates racism and once again his auteur style is shown by having a black character, Peter, survive right through to the end. Fran is the other last remaining survivor and she is one that changed positively throughout her experience with the zombies. This challenges all horror conventions regarding characters as Romero has killed off the two characters most likely to survive, Stephen and Roger, the young, white male heroes. It shows Romero’s enlightened thinking when it came to both race and feminism.

At the beginning of the film, Fran is projected as being the stereotypical blonde female victim. She is no help to Stephen when he is being attacked by a zombie in the hangar scene and is paralysed by fear when confronted with her first zombie. However, Gaylen Ross who plays Fran refused to scream at any point during the film and Romero’s increasingly worked in strong aspects to her character. Fran is pregnant and is told by the others to take it easy but nevertheless throughout the film, begins to build herself up as a strong independent woman who is just as capable as the male characters. She began to voice her fears when saying “What have we done to ourselves?” and by the end, managed to look after Roger when he was sick, learnt how to shoot a gun well and learnt how to fly the helicopter. She becomes the female hero and final girl; something we would not expect from a blonde female character in a genre that stereotypically portrays them as a victim.

On the other hand, Peter had always been the laid-back, cool character, for example, in the hangar scene, he bangs the coffee machine and coffee comes out. He is also very good with a gun, makes good decisions and is physically strong; shown when building a wall upstairs to block off the entrance. He initially considers suicide but shows the mental toughness to escape the zombies and survive with her.

While Romero challenges stereotypes of characters, the ending is fairly stereotypical in terms of conventional narrative structure. Fran and Peter are low on fuel which leaves the ending open as we do not find out if they escape the country. It also finishes with an unhappy ending as their friends have succumbed unwillingly to the zombies and been killed. This follows the typical conventions of horror films which leaves the audience with a memorable ending  that makes them eager to know if the heroes survive. This type of open ending is also shown in The Hills Have Eyes (2006) where 3 people survive and we see they are being spied on so again at the finale, making the audience unsettles whilst setting up a sequel.

Shotlist