Marketing research - Poster deconstructions

By studying numerous film posters which relate to our genre, several consistent themes were found, as well as 4 clear various changes in style.

The 1st of these is the Gothic style shown in the posters for 'Nightmare on Elm Street,' 'The Crazies,' 'Shutter Island' and Jacob's Ladder.  This has key features of red font, with a black and red colour theme often with a very pale blue/green feature. - Links to fear of physical pain.

The second style challenges the conventions by being bright with a light colour theme with a white background - shown in posters for 'The Shining' and 'The Eye.'  This plays on the idea of something familiar and ordinary being twisted. Key features are black and red font
, and a twisted image. - Links to fear of psychological disturbances.

The third style is a lifeless style shown in posters for 'Martyrs,' 'The Blair Witch Project,' 'Poltergeist,' and 'The Uninvited.'  The key features are a grey scale colour scheme, sometimes with very slight tints of red and an image with very low levels of lighting which highlight specific features. - Links to fear of the unknown.

The fourth apparent style is the clinical style shown in posters from 'Donnie Darko,' 'Orphan,' 'Paranormal Activity,' 'The Descent and 'Fear of the Dark.'  These all have a very strong presence of the colours blue and green and often portray bright artificial, clinical lighting. - Links to fear of logical fears pushed to the extreme.

Deconstruction of poster for 'Nightmare on Elm Street' 

The font used is simple, with sharp edges, which symbolises blades.  Red font follows protocols of slasher film style poster as it resembles the idea of blood. White font is used in coordination with the red font to show that innocence will be harmed. The word 'Nightmare' is in a larger font than the rest of the text in order to emphasise the idea of horror.  This play on words is very effective in attracting people to watch the film.

The image itself is used very effectively in this poster.  A medium shot is used of the man in order to make the viewer feel that the villain is disturbingly close.  It also gives a clear shot of the blade in his hand whilst not being so close as to reveal his identity.  The picture is back lit which has connotations of fear.  The lighting highlights the smoke rising behind of him which indicates a fire incident, and smoke adds to the enigma. The lighting creates a harsh shadow covering most of the mans face, but lights him well enough to see the poor and deformed state of his skin.  The villain sustains this enigma with his head down and the brown old fashioned hat covering the top half of his head, which leaves the viewer in anticipation of his appearance.  He also looks in control and powerful due to his stance.  His sweat-shirt links in with the theme of old fashioned and past events.  It also indicates towards the relative age of the character. 

Deconstruction of poster for 'The Eye'  
 

 The font used is simple and modern so shows that the film is set in the modern day The colours used are black and red to show the ideas of darkness, evil and death that run throughout the film.  The word 'eye' is written in a bold font to emphasise its importance.  One of the main attractions of the film is that Jessica Alba is one of the main cast members. Therefore her name is positioned above the title and in red to make it stand out. 

The image is also simple and does not give the plot away.  It does however hint that whoever's eye is on the picture, has darkness inside her, as the hand is coming out of the eye.  The warm brown colour of the eye contrasts well with the pale fingers, which supports this idea.  Also, one half of the whites of her eyes is quite a clean white, whilst the other is shadowed and dark showing 2 sides to the person. The white background of this poster challenges codes and conventions of horror film posters and gives the impression of something supernatural, as well as showing the involvement of someone innocent.  This poster has taken a more clinical approach which would be more relevant to our film, however it does seem to apply more to supernatural horrors rather than psychological horrors.