The Scream 4 movie poster uses standard horror conventions like dark colors and a masked villain to hint at the plot. The title font shows normal letters turning jagged and sharp to suggest something terrible happens. The tagline "New Decade. New Rules" tells viewers that previous events will reoccur but be worse, with a new villain and new rules. An image shows three protagonists being watched over by the iconic Scream mask in smoke, further hinting at the storyline. Standard information like the studio names, director, actors, and release date are also included.

1. Scream 4 Poster Analysis

3. Masthead/Title
The title on this poster is quite different to others I have
analysed in the fact that the font doesn’t look ‘scary’. It’s a
bold font, and the only letter that shows any relevance to a
Slasher film is the fact that the ‘M’ is jagged and very sharp.
The ‘A’ in Scream has also been replaced by the number
‘4’, meaning that they have tied in the number and title of the
film together.
However, my interpretation of this standard title is; the first
four letters are normal, but when you get to the ‘4’ and the
‘M’ panic starts to develop and something terrible happens.
This could therefore being an insight into the storyline.

4. Tagline
I assume that whoever is watching Scream 4 has also watched
the other three Scream films – if this is the case then they will
already have the basic knowledge of what happens within
them.
‘New Decade. New rules.’ This tells us that previous events
are going to re-occur, but this time they could be a lot worse.
It could also be informing the audience that there is a new
villain about because it states that there are ‘new rules’. This
makes the audience want to know what is going to happen in
this film.

5. Image
The image used on the poster is
extremely clever. There are three
characters in the middle of the
page, and we assume that these
are three protagonists. Behind
them is the iconic Scream mask in a
smoke effect which works very well
under the Slasher genre. It’s as if he
is watching over everyone else
which yet again gives us a hint into
the storyline.

6. Colour
The colour used within this poster is a perfect example of
colours that should be used in the Horror genre. The black
and grey represent darkness and all horror elements, the
white could signify the innocence of possible teenage
victims, whilst the red draws connotations of blood, danger
and panic. The four colours work very well together and the
fact that they have also used the effect of smoke adds even
more to the poster.

7. Layout
Most of the standard conventions have been applied here –
one of the only things that is different to other posters is the
fact that the tagline is at the top of the page and not
underneath the title. The tagline also fails to explain the
image properly.
Within the layout, I think the image works the best because of
the message it sends out; the Scream villain carefully
watching over everyone.

8. Release Date
This is written is the same font as the title, but it just a
bit smaller. However, the fact that it is written in red
makes is stand out a lot. The fact that they have
written ‘everywhere’ means that everyone that is
interested in seeing it can do, with no drawbacks.

9. Studio
The studio’s associated with this film are:
Outerbanks, Entertainment, Dimension Films. They
are all placed in their ideal position at the bottom of
the poster.

10. Director/Actor
The director of this film is Wes Craven - the director of
all other Scream films and a very notable director
within the Slasher genre. This may attract people who
are fans of his film. This is written in a fairly big font so
it is very noticeable.
Just underneath the title is three actors name and as
there are three characters on the poster we assume
this is them.