1. Prom night trailer analysis
Prom Night is a 2008 horror film from Screen Gems directed by Nelson
McCormick and starring Brittany Snow. The film is a re-imagining of the
1980 horror film of the same name. The trailer is structured and it follows
Todrovs theory.
As the trailer begins the audience are introduced to the equilibrium as the
audience are introduced to non- diagetic sound; which is representing how
time flies and then it lasts until the audience are introduced to the killer.
Then the audiences are introduced with what the film is about at 0:13. The
intertitle ‘the preparation’ which means something done to get ready for
an event in this instance it is their prom. There is a point of view shot
where of a blond girl coming down the stairs, in horror films the
stereotypical view is that something is going to happen to the blond girl.
There maybe a number of reasons for something will happen to the blond
girl in contrast to a raven-haired final girl. Whether she’s the final girl her
survival chances aren’t high. The final girl is a horror film trope that
specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer,
ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The trailer continues to be in a
positive mood as seen in the establishing shot of all the students dancing
on the dance floor. The medium shot of the girl and the boy at 0:44 show
that she will not be one of the final girls as she is in a scene involving little
sexual activity.
The moment of equilibrium starts when un-expectedly the lights turn off
and this will startle the audience because the equilibrium went on for a
long time. The non-diagetic sound comes to complete stop when the
moment of equilibrium starts and then during all the sound that the
audience will hear is diagetic. Then the lights are turned on but they keep
flickering, which connotes that something awful is going to happen. During
the moment of where the lights are going on and off there is a medium
shot of a man just comes out from nowhere and has blood on his face, this
comes alarming to the audience. The shot of the man does not conform to
Todrovs theory as it just comes out randomly and does fit in with scene
before and after. The shot of the close up of the mans leg, feet and some of
the stairs add mystery and is further mysterious as the audience can see
the man is wearing black trousers and the setting has a black shadow, this
shows this particular man is dangerous. The non-diagetic sound after is
slow and fast and is like something is thumping, during there is a voice of a
character say ‘oh my god’ this adds to that man is dangerous. The moment
of disequilibrium continues for half of the trailer as in the film psycho
there is scene where the woman is in the bathroom and the killer comes in
and this is resembled in Prom night as the blond girl is in the bathroom
and she sees something.

2. The moment of disequilibrium is in a hotel; a hotel is not a horror
paradigm, especially when the killer comes out from the cupboard. The
audience is shown a glimpse of the killer just before an intertitle of ‘To die
for’ which indicates that certain character is going to be killed. The diagetic
sound of ‘he’s locked all the exists ells the audience that he is a killer that
knows who his targets are and this creates high tension within the
audience. In trailers killers are not shown very often, but in this specific
trailer the killer is shown about seven times but the audience is shown the
killers face which keeps the audience anticipating about the killer and who
he is. The killer has an axe as a weapon; this is a stereotypical horror
paradigm.