Horror film posters conventionally use dark lighting, close-ups of victims or protagonists expressing fear or anxiety, and a color scheme of red, white, and black. Dark lighting establishes the genre and conveys themes of mystery, darkness, and evil. Close-ups highlight facial expressions to create anticipation and curiosity around key events. The colors red, white, and black symbolize common horror elements like darkness, danger, blood, innocence, and victimization.

1. Conventions of
horror film posters

2. Dark/lowkey lightingEvidently just like lowkey lighting is a convention
within the actual horror film, lowkey/dark lighting is
a key convention of the actual posters of the films!
The fact that dark/lowkey lighting applies to both
the posters and the actual film links up to the fact as
a producer we want to make the genre of the film
easily identifiable, thus, including lowkey lighting
within the poster would make it easy for the
audience to recognize the genre as it is such a major
convention of horror.
This is because lowkey/dark lighting has
connotations of mystery, darkness and evil – these
all being key themes within horror films.To add on
to that, the darkness is a very key feature in making
someone scared as it adds on to the idea of “fear of
the unknown” as when in the dark, we are more
vulnerable.

3. Close ups and extreme close ups.
Another key convention of film
posters is extreme close ups and close
ups of the victim, antagonist or the
protagonist. In most cases, it is used
to depict or represent their facial
expressions, which is very eye
appealing and attracting to the
audience. For example, in the
‘Scream’ poster we see a close up
shot of a female gasping, this
creating not only anticipation, but
also curiosity as we (as the audience)
want to know about how and why it
came to that conclusion.

4. Red, white and black.
One thing I noticed when looking at and searching horror posters, is that they all tended to have a
particular colour scheme, this being red, white and black.This is because all these different
colours have connotations that link up to particular stereotypical horror themes. For example, the
colour black would link to the theme and emphasis of darkness in horror films, the red linking to
the danger, death and blood theme of horrors and the white symbolizing the innocence that
somehow is always featured within horror films, this varying from the innocence in the
protagonist or the fact that the victim is usually someone who stereotypically a vulnerable
character who will have sympathy for such as a child or an elderly person.