My third horror trailer analysis is going to be for the film- The Woman In Black. I will apply DISTINCT to the trailer and in depth discuss how the film encourages horror loves to come and watch. Overall I personally believe that the trailer is very frightening, gloomy and terrorising. It firstly starts of with quick credits on the film creation etc and when this happens there is a very gloomy type of screen. It shows a dark horror type of sky with the clouds moving. This creates suspicion to start of the trailer. There is the sound of a train horn and it moving, which has been added over this screen and this is another aspect at the start which adds further suspicion and terror.
The majority of the settings which are contained inside of the trailer are gloomy and mostly dark. To start of with it shows a train moving along in dusk and therefore the trailer begins reasonably normal and not frightening to let viewers engage before and gain and understanding of the story to the film. It shows shortly after a setting of Eel Marsh House where Arthur visits. Despite this being in the daytime it portrays the surrounding and what type of house it is which is very horror like. It kind of sums up its history with it being old and also haunted. With the lighter setting inside of the train when Arthur is talking to Samuel Daily, you can see the surrounding of the train and what it is like compared to trains in todays generation. This will give spectators some idea of the time when the film is set. There is another setting this time inside of the house. It is very dark and suspicious despite being in daylight once again and this in many ways sums up the house to spectators and what it would be like to stay there. Which of course.. is frightening! There a lot of dark, neutral colours like blacks, dark purples, and greys used to portray further fright in settings. Another aspect of the trailer which is particularly frightening and simplifies the genre of the film is when Arthur is outside of the house in the dark. It is heavily raining as well as thundering and lightening which is typical weather and a typical setting for a horror movie. He sees various dead people which is scary for spectators and shows them the extent of fright which is contained inside of the movie.
The camera movements are mostly very sudden and sharp. This tends to empathise terror to spectators and make them jump! A brilliant example is when Arthur lights a match and then suddenly the camera immediately jumps to the horror character in front of him which is shocking for viewers. It then jumps back to Arthur’s reaction very quickly. This series of fast, immediate shots creates horror for the spectators and again shows them what the movie will be like when watching. The trailer contains mostly jumpy parts and it is a case of waiting for spectators to when the next frightening part will be. I think this is brilliant as again it prepares viewers for the kind of aspects which the film will contain if they decide to go and watch. An anticipating, jumpy part is when Arthur spins the lamp shade. Everything is quiet and all you can hear is the shade spinning. Arthur looks inside and then an eye pops up suddenly. To empathise the terror on this there is a high pitched immediate sound. Music and sound also plays a large part in the fright of the trailer. There mainly seems to be short sudden sounds of high pitches to empathise horror to viewers. There is a short montage of certain parts of the film in the trailer showing a rook/crow on a table (signifiers of death), a house fire as well as Arthur and Samuel’s reactions to this. These are short sudden clips and increasing sound combined with a mixture of high and low pitches is placed over the top as well as dialogue from the clips to again create suspense.
Iconography also plays a part inside of the trailer. One particular aspect which I noticed are the three little girls walking towards a window. Before this it shows one of girls foot stomping on a ‘dolls’ head. The fact that there is a doll on the floor shows that they would have been playing with these kind of toys and this is typical iconography for a little girl and the kind of thing which they find interesting at that age. The fact that Arthur has a son and the woman says to him ‘go home to him’ shows that he is away/ working away from his son. This would in a way show the typical iconography of a man- going out to work and earn- he is sacrificing leaving his son. Inside of the trailer there are also various character types. Arthur is seen as the central character inside of the trailer who the film will work around. Samuel is seen as Arthurs helper and friend also and he tends to know what the house is like in some ways because he is local. Arthur is seen as daring in the trailer finding out what is in the house with no ‘local buyer’. With him coming up from London and going into the house he doesn’t know what it contains and what it can lead too. This therefore can make him kind of innocent in a way also. There is a character saying ‘you should have gone when we told you too’, to Arthur. This guy seems to be a local and fond with the people in the current surrounding environment. He tends to be the ‘hater’ maybe along with other locals towards Arthur as he sees him doing something wrong which maybe Arthur does not know he is doing himself. With Samuel being his friend this may lead to locals not liking him also. The woman who tells Arthur to go back to his son also seems to be a local but one that cares about him . Shee knows what he should do and not stay here. Last but not least there then seems to be the horror type of characters. There is the face which comes up suddenly after Arthur has lit a match and then there is the figure shown in the background of some parts of the trailer in darker clothing which appears to be ‘The Woman In Black’ who seems to be the main horror character. There are also then the dead children arthur see’s when outside the house. These type of characters are the ones which cause the most fright in the trailer towards spectators.
Lastly there are also some themes contained inside of the trailer. One main one is fear. Of course as explained above and shown in the trailer Arthur experiences a lot of fear as do the spectators also. Neglection is maybe another contained inside the trailer also. When the man says to Arthur ‘you should have gone when we told you too’, they are basically saying that they don’t want him there and with Arthur only recently arriving he is being neglected from an area he doesn’t really know to well.
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