3. GENERAL CONVENTIONS
• The eight horror movie posters that I have picked are from the slasher sub- genre.
They have been successfully used to promote the movie. Through analysing this
sub- genre, I have discovered similar features that have continued to make an
appearance throughout.
• All eight of these posters have very similar conventions that would be expected
from this genre such as the title appearing in the colour red (emphasis blood and
gore), and the main image taking up most of the poster. The main image generally
has a lot of dark shades and figures to create the enigma of the unknown.
• Colours that are typically on horror movie posters are very dark and very rarely
bright and bold. For example, ‘Friday the 13th’ has a lot of dark shadows and a black
silhouette to create enigma and fear of the movie.
4. MAIN IMAGE
• The main image in the first six posters are very alike. For example, the ‘Scream’, ‘Texas
Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘House of Wax’ and the ‘Halloween’ poster all have a close up image of
the antagonist. This is either a human face that has been manipulated to look abnormal or
the face of an innocent victim that the target audience can relate to.
• The other very typical convention is for there to be a dark figure of the antagonist that is low
angled to make the viewers feel intimidated by the killer and make them feel part of the
movie. As the antagonists face is unclear, it makes the audience afraid of what can be lurking
in the dark.
• The scream poster has an attractive young female on the front which is conventional as
women in slasher films are often portrayed as sexual objects and stereotyped as ‘bimbos’.
• The ‘IT’ poster and ‘Alice sweet Alice’ have a medium close up of the antagonist to show a
glimpse of what the movie will be like, for example, the IT poster is of a killer clown with
claws and the Alice sweet Alice shows a girl with a bloody weapon and a mask. This will
make sure the right audience will be attracted.
5. MOVIE NAME & TAGLINES
• The name of the movie is typical to be large in font and at the bottom of the main image. This is
cleverly placed for the route of the eye so that people’s eyes will go straight from the main image
to the name title once they have been drawn in by the main image. It is also usually in the colour
red to express the violence that the antagonist will cause. This also draws in the correct audience.
• The font is almost always in upper case to show that the audience, alongside the protagonist, will
feel intimidated and scared of the killer. As this is common, it has become a common convention
in slasher posters. However, the move ‘Alice sweet Alice’ is in lower case. This is not typical but
may have been done to show a child may have wrote it and will thus draw in a larger audience as
they may not expect a female child to be the antagonist, and so they will want to watch the
movie and see what went wrong with her.
• the taglines are either placed at the top of the poster or at the base and helps anchor or
reinforce the meaning of the image or reveal more about the narrative. For example in the movie
‘Friday the 13th’ the tagline is ‘Welcome to Crystal Lake,’ this makes the audience know where the
film is set and can maybe relate to a place near them (lakes are common). Also some taglines
make the film slightly more scarier then they appear, for example, in the ‘Texas Chainsaw
Massacre’ the tagline says ‘inspired by a true story’ as the idea of a real life killing makes the
audience believe the same thing could happen to them.
