THE PURGE Horror Film Poster Analysed

1. Slasher Horror
This se ll line is yet another movie that has been made
by the creators of ‘Paranormal Activity’; in which the
movie series has been out since 2007 is really well
known, and has had really good audience feedback.
‘Sinister’ came out in 2012 and is also one of the
most popular horror films. If the audience sees that
‘The Purge’ has had the same producers this is
promoting the film, as they will assume that it’s
successful too, and will be intrigued to watch it. With
placing this at the top left of the poster, where
people natural begin reading first, gives it a clever
audience attention technique.
Just by this simple tagline, the audience now
knows that this movie is set in an alternate
universe; by connoting that there is a special
occasion (like Christmas, Easter, etc.) where
people can commit any crimes they want. This
shows that the movie itself challenges the
horror genre‘s conventions as everyone in the
film will knows about how the destruction will be
caused. The phase ‘ALL CRIME IS LEGAL’ this
means that any crime is approved for this one
night throughout the whole year. This connotes
to the audience killing, blood, knives- all sorts of
weapons, horror, shock etc.; which this all
perfectly fits into the ‘slasher horror genre’.
The masthead is effectively is followed by the
tagline. Most of the audience will probably like
this idea because it’s set in an alternate universe,
and this originality and bend of the way the
world is run could be really interesting for some
of the. Even if the audience members are not a
fan of alternative universe, they will probably
still be a little bit intrigued. This is probably why
the movie is entitled ‘THE PURGE’, as it connotes
killing. Also the white bold font reinforces the
horror convention as it makes the typography
standout from the dark intimidating background.
The sell line at the bottom, by using a hashtag
is a great way to get the movie more noticed,
because it’ll be trending around social
websites such as Facebook and Twitter. This
will gain the movie a bigger audience because
these websites are so commonly used. This is
also is a great way to connect the audience
more to the movie by making them feel more
involved. The words “Survive the night” also
tell us that there is a lot of death and danger in
the movie, which is not only typical elements
of a horror movie, but it’ll also exciting and
intrigue them more.
The dominant image is presumably the main antagonist from the movie. As we can see, he is wearing a mask
over his face, which connotes that this movie is a “Slasher” horror genre as stereotypically, the antagonist
wears a mask (Friday 13th, Halloween, etc.). This may be because some of the audience may find masks scary
or unsettling, possibly because they connote a mystery of what’s underneath, and a sense of secrecy and the
unknown; this is a less common but still popular element of a horror movie antagonist. The mask has a slightly
disturbing and an evil smile, which connotes that this character may be a little bit crazy and psychotic, which
also links the typical blood-thirsty slasher movie antagonist. His eyes look unusually odd, the way the eye holes
of the mask are not in-line with the man’s eyes; this give them a smaller. More sinister look to them, as if they
are narrowed with some form of twisted glee.
To conclude, this poster follows the stereotypical connotations of a horror movie poster, with the dark colour
scheme and black background, which represents danger and evil. The black out background makes the poster
look even more terrifying and effectively brings out the details of the main image.