This poster analyzes the movie poster for "The Shining". It summarizes that the poster features Jack Torrance as the antagonist trying to attack his wife Wendy with an axe in their home. Through lighting, composition, and facial expressions, the poster conveys Jack's madness and dominance over the scared Wendy. It follows horror movie poster conventions like using few dominant colors and placing the title and credits at the bottom. Overall, the unconventional layout and mystery of the narrative draws the audience interest to watch the film.

1. Poster
Analysis

2. Introduction
This poster promotes ‘The Shining’, a
psychological horror in which the Torrance
family move into a new hotel, when Jack
discovers dark secrets and begins to
unravel into a homicidal maniac, hell-bent
on terrorizing his family. This film belongs
to the psychological sub-genre as Jack
becomes mentally sick and ends up
insane. I chose to analyse this poster
because it features a different layout to the
other two posters I analysed; this is
because the film is a lot older than the
other two. Also different from the other two
posters, this features a male antagonist.
This film is also similar to the plot of our
film, with the antagonist going crazy and
killing the one they love. I also liked the
idea that this poster features both the
antagonist and the victim, rather than just
the antagonist; making the poster different
from other films, and successful in
attracting the target audience.
Poster Conventions
Content-wise, this poster features the
main conventions of a horror movie
poster; the image dominates the frame,
and gives the audience a visual clue as
to the narrative of the film. The main
characters are also presented to the
audience, and we are immediately told
that Jack is the antagonist, and Wendy
is the victim. Following more
conventions, the title is placed at the
bottom of the frame in the biggest font,
attracting the audience and telling them
the name of the film immediately. The
institutional information is also placed at
the bottom of the page; another
convention of psychological horror
posters. This is to ensure that no
attention is taken away from the visual
on the page.

3. As most posters, this poster is image dominated. However, it is conventional for the image to take up the whole page, with the text placed
on the top of the image, but with this poster, the image only takes up the middle of the poster, with a white block at the bottom of the page.
This could be a layout technique used to differentiate it from other posters, and make the audience more interested in watching it.
The image on this poster is set in their house, although we can only see Jack’s head through a broken door, and Wendy leaning against a
wall screaming. This is a conventional setting for a horror movie, and scares the audience by telling them that they’re not safe, even in
their own home. This also allows the audience to form expectations about the narrative; from this image they’ll understand that Jack goes
crazy and tries to attack Wendy. The fact that the door is broken tells the audience of his strength, and because his head fills the door, it
creates a sense of claustrophobia.
Lighting has been used effectively on this image; a red tinted light has been used on the left side of the poster to emphasise that Jack’s
evil, and this makes him contrast with the white used throughout the rest of the poster. Key lighting has been used on Wendy in order to
make her seem more pale and innocent, reminding the audience that she’s the victim.
In this poster, we’re presented with a close-up of Jack, allowing us to see his anger and emotions. Breaking poster conventions, he’s not
making eye contact with the audience; this tells us that his main focus is attacking Wendy, and we can see this determination in his eyes.
Jack’s manic face is one of the first things noticed, and we see his eyes, that can be described as hunter eyes, fitting with the idea that he
has an animalistic facial expression, with bared teeth. Wendy on the other hand shows signs of being the typical victim; she’s making eye
contact with the audience as if she’s asking for help, and her face shows her screaming, telling the audience that she’s scared. Horror
iconography is present in this image, as we see Wendy holding a knife, this shows that she’s trying to defend herself, although still scared.
This hints to the audience that she could survive, as these are representations linked to the final girl. Wendy is cowering into the wall of the
room, linking to typical ideas of the woman being weak and vulnerable. However, the two weapons juxtapose, with Jack having a large
axe, insinuating his superiority, compared to Wendy's knife which was unplanned. Wendy is wearing a dressing gown, representing the
idea that she's comfortable in her own house, but she's still being attacked; this creates fear for the audience because they think this could
happen to them, even in the comfort of their own homes. Jack is in the left hand third, so the audience’s eyes will go to him first,
suggesting that he’s the antagonist. We can see that Jack’s hair is messy, suggesting that he doesn’t care about anything except killing
Wendy. He is also closest to the camera, showing his dominance over Wendy who is hiding at the back.
Image

4. Title
The title of this film is ‘The Shining’, representing the power that Jack and
Danny had in the film. This is a typical name for a horror film because its
short and simple, not revealing too much to the audience.
A sans-serif font is used, showing this film is for entertainment purposes,
and allowing the font to give a scarier effect. The title is written in capital
letters, in order to attract the audience to it, telling them that it’s the most
important piece of text on the page. The title is also the biggest piece of
text on the page, reminding the audience of it’s importance, and ensuring
that it’ll be remembered.
The title is written in black, on a white background, following the simple
colour scheme and reminding the audience of the good versus evil
theme. Black also has connotations of power, linking to the powers that
Jack has in the film. Black also has negative connotations, reminding the
audience that it’s a horror movie, creating tension for them.
Positioned at the bottom, the title follows conventions by having the
image above. The title is placed here because the audience would look
from the top to the bottom, leaving the name of the film in their heads,
ensuring that they’d watch it.

5. Other Text
Breaking conventions, this poster doesn’t have a tagline. This could be due to
the fact that they didn’t want to give any more information away, or overcrowd
the poster. However, placed at the top of the poster where the tagline would be
is another piece of promotional text. This text uses alliteration to attract the
audience, by saying ‘the tide of terror that swept America IS HERE’.
Personification is also used, as terror cant really sweep America, but this is a
good promotional method as the audience will know that the film is terrifying,
and all of America will be talking about it. This also links to the film and the
trailer itself, when we see the tide of blood filling up the room. This also
suggests genre, by reminding the audience how scary the film is. The words
‘is here’ are capitalised, telling the audience that the film is now available,
making them want to go home and find out about watching it.
Following conventions, the institutional information is placed at the bottom of
the poster in a smaller font, in order to not distract the audience's attention. At
the beginning of the institutional information, on it’s own line, we’re told that
Stanley Kubrick is the director of the film. This would attract Kubrick fans to
watching the film, and because he’s popular in the movie industry, people
would know that this is a high quality film, worth watching. We can also see the
actor’s names written at the bottom, again, attracting fans of these actors,
making the film more attractive to the audience.

6. Colour
Black, white and orange/red are the dominating colours of this poster, sticking
to conventions of using no more than three main colours. Black and white are
used to represent good and evil, showing the transformation of Jack turning
from a normal, good man, into a psychologically damaged murderer. Orange is
used rather than red, to represent the sub-genre not being focused on blood
and gore, but focusing on the mind of the antagonist. Jack’s face is also seen
to be red, showing his anger and strength, linking to the fact that he’s the
antagonist.
Conclusion
Overall, this poster is effective in promoting ‘The Shining’, by having a different
image layout of other posters, attracting the audience to it. In terms of luring in
the target audience, I think this poster will be successful because of Wendy’s
eye contact, calling out to the audience for help. The poster is successful in
suggesting the film’s narrative without giving too much of it away, because it
includes the image that reveals that Jack’s trying to hurt Wendy, but we don’t
know whether he’s successful or not, and we don’t know why he wants to do
this. These points would attract the audience because they’d want to find
these things out, and this would pull them towards watching the film.