The trailer summarizes the supernatural horror film "The Devil Inside" which focuses on possession. It opens with an emergency call from Maria Rossa describing a frightening situation. The trailer then shows Maria's daughter Isabella telling a group including a priest about Maria's history of killing three people. Intercut are shots of a distraught Maria in her bare room, emphasizing her unstable state. The trailer builds suspense through its editing, camerawork, and ominous tones as it hints at exorcisms and dark forces at play in the film.

1. Trailer Analysis:
The Devil Inside
The film trailer for ‘The Devil Inside’ is a supernatural
horror film which features elements of Possession
within the film. This particular feature is extremely
common within Supernatural horror films as it
reflects the fears of the audience.
The film trailer opens up with an emergency call
from Maria Rossa, where in the above image
displays the dialogue that takes place within the
phone call to 911 allowing the audience to see
what exactly is going on. The tone of the voice that
Maria appears to be speaking in is extremely
frightful and unnerving, immediately setting the
scene even though there is no action on the screen
yet for them to view, just the text alone engages
the audience enough to pay more attention to the
words being said on the screen.

2. Due to this being the only dialogue and action on
the screen the use of diegetic sound is therefore
strengthened, reeling in the audience into the
narrative of the film.
Once the conversation quickly ends after the
phone has been hung up a quick second flash
pops up of a female in complete darkness wearing
minimal clothing giving off vulnerable body
language with her arms across her body as if in
pain. The sudden quick image of the female leaves
the audience confused, wanting the trailer to go
on to find out who she is or what that image might
be leading too, An instant form of engaging the
audience to carry on further watching the trailer.

3. From this image, the screen then fades into the first
scene of the trailer where the mise-en-scene tells
the audience that Isabella the daughter of Maria
Rossa, appears to be sitting in a restaurant/bar
telling a group of people about the history of her
mother, revealing how she killed three people
linking back to the dialogue on the screen at the
opening of the trailer. Within this scene some clear
uses of Iconography can be identified as there is a
priest sitting with the group, a common character
within Supernatural/Possession films as a large
number of horror films feature religious imagery
within their narrative’s in order to terrify the
audience as for a priest to be involved with an
event or in particular this conversation they appear
to be having the audience will automatically see
that the discussion is extremely serious suggesting
that an exorcism may need to be performed later
in the trailer through the use of a priest.

4. Within the background of the conversation, there is
the use of Non-Diegetic music being played on a
piano creating a reflective and melancholy tone,
leaving the audience on edge as to what is to
come.
In this trailer of ‘The Devil Inside’ there are a variety
of camera shots used such as long shots, medium
shots and establishing shots as well as the extreme
use of zoom-ins all done for the purpose of the
audience to become fully engaged but also to
understand who this supernatural horror film is
based on.
A use of a camera zoom happens within the first
fourty seconds of the trailer where the camera
zooms into a photo of Maria and her Daughter,
particularly on Maria’s face, portraying to the
audience that she takes an importance within the

5. narrative of the film. Although the pair look like an
ordinary mother and daughter through their casual
makeup, and style of hair the use of direct address
from the two make the audience feel
uncomfortable, as the audience question why their
picture is popping up on the screen questioning
what the mother has done as the camera zooms
more and more into her face.

6. There are also a variety of edits used within the
trailer such as an two establishing shots of the
scenery, this is done deliberately to show the film is
set in Rome, as Isabella’s mother is in a mental
institution in Rome. The stock location of this trailer is
not abandoned or isolated in any way as it
primarily takes place mainly at the hospital
alongside a basement or cellar in which Isabella is
shown other patients at the hospital who suffer from
exorcisms, where below is a character who is
undertaking an exorcism.
Further along the
film trailer, The
audience are
displayed a
medium shot of
Maria in her room
of the institution
where her face is
pale, with no
makeup on with her hair down as if she is distressed
displaying an appearance of being drained with
no energy or life in her. She shows this portrayal to
the audience through her appearance, again
emphasising that this character is ill and will be a
main source of evil within the narrative. Through the

7. mise-en-scene the audience are able to notice the
minimal placement of any objects. The room is kept
very plain and simple with only a table, chair and a
bedwhere the table appears to have chalk
markings or writing all over it indicating to the
audience that Maria hears things in her head
noting them all down with the chalk, presenting
quite childlike mannerisms, leaving the audience to
feel pity for this character as it is not her fault that
her soul and body has been taken over as
underneath she is innocent.
A horrific image is then
shown to the audience as the camera zooms in on
Maria’s arm to display cuts all over her arm,
suggesting to the audience that she has done that
to herself. Maria keeps repeating the word
‘Connecticut’ over and over, suggesting she has
no realisation as to what she is saying possibly even
that her daughter is in the room with her. Also the

8. word ‘Connecticut’ has no meaning or correlation
to the trailer or what is being shown on screen,
making the audience to feel unnerving. The
common colours used within horror films such as
white, black and red interestingly enough do not
feature as often within this particular film to create
a sense of realism.
In part of the trailer where the priest is leading
two of the characters down to the basement/cellar
the trailer automatically becomes dark and dismal.
The walls in the cellar are made of bricks
exemplifying a cold mood as the audience will
soon be revealed as to what is down there.

9. Towards the end of the trailer, a montague is
used displaying a variety of snippets of footage of
the film, one being a night view long shot of the
scenery of Rome using ambient lighting of nighttime. This displays that from now on the trailer will
also be following a darker mood particularly for the
worse as the setting now has leaving the audience
with suspense as they are on edge to see what
happens next.

10. Towards the end of the montage, a camera
shot of a bird’s eye view is displayed with the
dialogue in the background of Maria Rossa singing
a children’s rhyme in a disdainful tone, creating
more fear for the audience again wanting to know
what happens next. The use of featuring a
children’s rhyme being sung by an evil and sinister
character is a common and repeated convention
used within Supernatural horror films as they all tend
to use something innocent that is associated with
innocent and ordinary objects or children and turn
them sinister and corrupted.