The document analyzes six slasher film posters and identifies common design conventions. It notes that each poster features a masked male antagonist holding a signature weapon, using a color scheme of black, red, white and grey. Key patterns are placing the film title in large text at the bottom and including a tagline that hints at the plot. Overall, the posters effectively promote the slasher genre through visual cues and layout that would attract fans of graphic horror films.

1. Slasher Film Poster Overview

2. These 6 film posters havebeen successfully designed to promote films within
the Slasher sub-genre. Each of the six film posters features typical film poster
conventions. They each havesimilar stylistic features, similar layout and similar
content. They are each film posters for a Slasher film so are produced with the
intention of attracting an audience of Slasher fans and making them wantto go
out and watch the film. By comparing these posters, I will be likely to identify
shared features and patterns used by all horror film posters and Slasher
posters specifically. Equally, I will be able to recognisewhat make them
effective and what allows the audience to instantly recognisethat a Slasher
horror is being promoted.
Each of these posters follows the conventional layoutof a film poster and
features key general conventions. There are expected features of a main image
that dominates and fills the entire frame, combined with a tagline that anchors
the image and gives the audience a hint as to what the narrativeentails and
horrific imagery. On each poster, the title of the film is the largest text in the
frame. Itis in a central position at the bottom of the frame, sitting beneath the
main image. This is to ensurethat the film title is the last thing the audience
sees, so it will morethan likely stick in their minds. This is an effective use of
layout, as it will ensurethat the audience is hooked in by the main image and
the restof the poster, beforethe title is revealed. Itis vital that the audience
see the film title last as it is the most important feature on the poster; if they
don’t remember the name this could prevent them fromgoing to see the film
and encouraging others to do so. In all six of the posters, the text used for the
title is in upper case in a bold and simple font that is highly visible. The text is
simple yet effective to allow the audience to focus more on and be drawn in by
the image. All of the posters usea display font and in four of the posters this is
in a serif style. This makes the font simple and easy to read and effective. Each
of the posters, except Nightmare on Elm Street, features a tagline that helps to
anchor or reinforcethe image. Oneof the reasons that a Nightmare on Elm
Street doesn’t is due to the fact that it is a classic. The poster is filled by
Freddie Crougar, who Slasher fans would instantly recognise; Freddie alone is
enough and so the image doesn’tneed to be reinforced. Also, this is a teaser
poster as it has a lack of institutional information on the bottom. Teaser
posters tend to have limited text and feature largely an image and a title. This
reinforces the idea of FreddieCrougar being enough to promote the film. On

3. the Friday the 13th
and Halloween posters the slogan is placed at the top of the
frame, a fairly common position for the tagline. The tagline for Friday the 13th
is “Welcome to CrystalLake”. This gives the audience an insightinto the
location of the film and the narrative as it implies that the film will surround a
group of characters who go to CrystalLake and the audience will guess that,
once there, they will be tormented by the antagonist in the image. Also the use
of the word ‘welcome’ is ironic, of course, as the treatment they encounter
once there will be anything but warmand welcoming. The other three posters
feature the tagline underneath the title. This helps to complete the poster as it
would be the very last thing the audience read and will leave the audience with
a lingering senseof what is to come when they see the film. This choice of
layout works better froma logistical viewpoint too; as the tagline would be
covering key parts of the image if it were to be placed at the top. 5 of the 6
posters feature institutional information that is positioned at the baseof the
poster.
We see other repeated patterns through the useof image. In each of the
posters, the image focuses around a main male character, who we can
instantly tell is the antagonist. Each antagonist in the main image is wearing a
mask. This is a well-known convention of the slasher sub-genreas the killer is
nearly always masked to increase the suspenseabout his true identity and to
horrify his victim, as well as the audience, of course. The Mise-en-sceneused
instantly tells us that this poster belongs to the slasher sub-genre. As wellas
the mask, the antagonist’s costumefeatures some formof overalls and he is
holding his signature weapon. For example, in the My Bloody Valentine poster,
the antagonistis wear a gas mask and overalls holding a pitch-axe. This is Mise-
en-scene typical of the Slasher sub-genreas in every slasher film the antagonist
uses a weapon that will cause a long and painful death with the most blood
and gorepossible. There is a clear pattern in these slasher posters of placing
the weapon in a prominent position to draw the audience’s attention to it and
give them an insightinto how the victims will be killed. For example, in the
Texas Chainsaw poster, our eyes are instantly drawn to the chainsaw that
holds a central position in the frame and is presented at a low angle to
maximise its size. The reason for this may be that slasher fans would be drawn
in by the knowledge that if the film is centred on a gruesomeweapon such as a
chainsaw, the film will be bloody and gory in the extreme.

4. There is a consistent pattern in the colours schemes used in each of the six
posters with only slight differences between them. Black, red, white and grey
appear to be the dominant colours across each poster, except Halloween
whereorange, the signaturecolour of the Halloween season, dominates. The
combination of black and red signify death and blood. Itallows the audience to
instantly recognisethe poster as a Slasher poster as the useof red reflects the
large scale of blood and gore that would feature in a Slasher film. Whereas,
with supernaturalposters, palecold colours are used to signala chilling mood
and to reflect the arrivalof a sinister spiritwill draw all life, colour and hope
fromthe characters’ lives. A pattern I haverecognised is with the posters that
emphasisethe weapon such as My Bloody Valentine, Texas Chainsaw and
Friday the 13th
, the poster is mainly dominated by dark colours such as grey
and black with a hint of red. Here, using dark colours allows the audience’s
attention to focus on the weapon, as it shimmers through the darkness.
Further to this, low angle shots are utilised to emphasisethe weapon rather
than the antagonisthimself. The posters for Halloween and Hatchet, on the
other hand, use the colour scheme to emphasisethe background, with orange
and red being the dominating colours. This may be due to the fact that by
emphasising the background, the audience’s focus is on the antagonist. Italso
allows the audience to focus on the body shapeof the antagonist. The bright
background creates a silhouette around his body and shows theaudience how
intimidating he is and to reflect how these human beings are dark through and
through. This is emphasised through the use of a medium long shotto show
the entire antagonist.
All of the posters in the selection are effective in drawing in the audience and
promoting the film. Each of the posters follow the same principle of less is
more by letting the image, the colours and the text do the talking. Key
iconography, meanwhile, is introduced successfully in all posters to attract the
typical fan of slasher horror.