Horror trailer solo review (3)

I reviewed the trailer for the gory / horror film Day of the Dead (1985).  This is the third film in George A. Romero's 'Dead' series, so when this trailer came out the audiences had prior knowledge of what the film is going to be like.  The previous two films Night of the Living Dead (1965), and Dawn of the Dead (1978) were known for being very gory at the time but this trailer displayed no signs of gore and even very few horror aspects.

During the trailer they keeps cutting away to a scene in the cinema of people watching the film, and as the trailer progresses we see a zombie sitting in the cinema with the crowd.  This scene I feel takes away from all creepiness or fear that the trailer should have had and makes the film look silly.

Horror trailer solo review (2)

I reviewed the trailer for the gory / horror film Evil dead (2013).  I thought the trailer was very good and advertised the film nicely.  The trailer started off fairly slowly, with lots of whispering and setting a creepy atmosphere, but it quickly builds up pace and ends an impressive gore effect of the antagonist demon girl slicing her tongue in two.  The trailer ends with this scene because it's quite a powerful image to leave in the audience's heads.  Another aspect of the trailer that I liked is the way that the music in the background matches the way the titles transition onto the screen.

Horror trailer solo review (1)

I reviewed the trailer for 30 days of night (2007) a gory action horror about vampires.  The trailer had a good beginning because it started with a jump scare, which would definately grab the audiences attention.  However I don't believe the rest of the trailer lived up to the action suggested by this first scene. 

I felt the trailer lacked a lot of action, most scenes with vampires were close-ups as they menacingly look at the camera.  Doing this shows off the impressive special effects and make-up on the vampires but took away from the pace of the trailer.

Horror trailer class review (3)

As a class we watched and analysed the trailer for the Pusher trilogy, a crime thirller revolving largely around drugs.  Averaging out the classes scores out of 10, we rated the trailer 6. 

A lot of people in the class thought that when the trailer showed 10 or so clips in about 2 seconds, it was too fast and people could barely understand what was happening in these bursts of clips.  Where some people thought this was a negative, others thought it was quite good since it kept up the pace of the trailer, and got a lot of information out quickly. 

Everyone in the class seemed to like the gradual increase in speed of the trailer, starting off with conversations and ending with lots of action.  We all agreed that the music suited it very well, and accompanied the tempo that the trailer was aiming for well.  Also considering that this trailer was advertising a trilogy it kept the trailer at a nice length so the audience didn't get bored.

Horror trailer class review (2)

We also looked at the trailer for Dawn of the Dead (2004) in class.  The trailer was given an average score of 6.5 out of 10.  The reason it didn't score higher is that for a zombie film that is known to be very gory, there was a dissapointing amount of body horror, and very few zombies .  The use of collision cutting at the start of the trailer had a good impact, it started off with quite a peaceful scene but quickly picked up pace and volume when the zombie girl bursts into the room and we hear screaming when the screen turns black.  How the trailer ends was also quite clever, they made it look like the film was breaking.

Horror trailer class review (1)

In class we watched the trailer for the film Cloverfield.  The average score out of 10 that we gave the trailer was 7.5.  The class liked the style of the trailer in that it was a scene from the film rather than a montage of highlights from the film.  Showing us one scene draws us into the characters and the audience are more likely to want to watch the film, so they can see what happens to the characters.

A disadvantage to only showing the audience one scene is that we see a very small fraction of the film and it may not accurately represent the rest of the film.  We also don't know where in the film the clip takes place, this is an issue because it would be a completely different film if it ended with this clip as opposed to beginning with it.  The reason the trailer didn't score higher than 7.5 is that there wasn't enough gore, or aspects of horror in the trailer, it came across as more of just a dark action film, than a horror.

Stereotypical fan

Our horror film will be aimed primarily at working class men from ages 18 to 40.  We chose this demographic since our horror film will heavily feature gore and action which is more suited to males, and we are assuming the film would be rated 18 plus.  From our horror sub genre analysis we found that E, D, C2 and C1 were most interested in the sub genre of horror that we chose.

People most interested in our horror film would be mainstreamers, reformers and outsiders.  These are the psychographic classifications that would be most interested in a horror film.  A stereotypical fan's favourite films would typically be the saw films, because of their excessive use of gore and films like the expendables where the reason you see them are for the action rather than a storyline.

Magazine Front Cover Analysis (3)

Magazine Front Cover Analysis (2)