Cameras filming empty rooms, the presence of children, and the use of night vision are identified as common genre signifiers that signify a paranormal or ghost movie in the trailer for Paranormal Activity 2. For The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the key signifiers mentioned are the presence of a psychopathic antagonist, their use of a chainsaw as a weapon, and scenes of gruesome violence and blood. Resident Evil is identified as having clear horror signifiers through the inclusion of zombies, an outbreak of a spreading virus, and depictions of gore.

1. Identifying Genre Signifiers
Paranormal Activity 2
Cameras: this is a genre signifier because it is iconic for ghost/paranormal
movies to have parts where it’s just a camera filming what the viewers would
think to be an empty room, but when a paranormal presence is known to be
there in trailer it can leave viewers on edge and makes for a good scary trailer.
A Child: This is a great genre signifier because it makes the viewer more scared
when a child is involved; this can affect some people more than others but
does get a good reaction and can immediately tell the movie is going to be
scary.
Night Vision: Night vision is a good way to show if a movie is going to be based
in the light or dark, and when most of the trailer shows the activity going on
during the night vision can make the movie seem scarier as it is only during the
night do these events happen.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Psychopath: this is a huge genre signifier because all horror movies have an
antagonist, and this would be the perfect one because it makes for an
unsettling story to unfold.
Weapon (Chainsaw): Horror movies with the antagonist as one main person,
they will have some sort of signature weapon, so in this case the chainsaw
being the main weapon.
Blood & Gruesome Scenes: Depending on the type of Horror movie they can
have levels of gruesomeness, so if you were to see in the trailer a man with a
chainsaw cutting people up you would know that this is a horror that is why it’s
a good signifier.

2. Resident Evil
Zombies: This is a huge Horror Signifier as nearly any movie you see with
zombies will be a horror is some way.
Virus Outbreak: When a movie has a virus outbreak that starts to spread from
person to person that can also be a signifier because this gives a sense that
things are not going to go well, throw that in with zombies and makes a great
horror.
Gore: This is a main signifier in a zombie movie as lots of it would be zombies
eating each other so there is normally lots of blood and guts which shows that
it is a horror.