Analysis of Horror Trailer- Insidious

The link above shows the trailer to the horror movie- Insidious. The film was released in the year of 2010 and is rated only an age 15. The director of the film was James Wan with the writer being Leigh Whannell. The film stars Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and also Ty Simpkins as well as many more. I will now go onto analyse the trailer of the film. After watching the trailer over and over again a various number of times, there are many aspects which I find very interesting as well as clever and also appealing . The idea of a film trailer is to encourage people to watch the film which is being advertised and in many ways to grab their attention to the storyline. I can most certainly and confidently say that this trailer does exactly this. Overall the film took in an astonishing $97,009,150 from the box office after only costing $1.5 million to make. The first thing which was shown on the trailer was the name of the film. I think that this is brilliant as it instantly introduces itself to spectators. The font of the text of this name shown is quite a modern but worn text. As well as this it is also placed on a plain black background and both of these features represent the genre of the film which is of course- horror. They give a more horror effect overall. When the name is shown it is an animation and skips between the name ‘insidious’ and ‘in’ where doing this there is a crackly type sound and this is very mysterious. Setting a scarier entrance likes this prepares the audience for what they are about to see and would if they see the movie.

At the start of the trailer after the name, there is a medium close up shot on what appears to be the central character of the movie. This is very good and is another aspect which I particularly like as again it introduces him immediately to the audience so they can see and judge what he is like to begin with. He closes his eyes as if in deep thought and there is a ticking sound which is coming from a metronome. There is no other sound apart from this and once again the scene becomes very suspicious as well as frightening. After this part of the trailer there is a small montage showing the central character and his family. It shows them having fun and in their normal life but over the top of this montage there is still the ticking sound from the metronome as well as the characters voices. The montage is very important as it is giving the spectators some idea of who is contained as it is showing the main characters and their lifestyle. As in most trailers they give clips from the film to sell their film the audience watching and to encourage them to view. Inside this particular trailer I like the way it shows a clip from the film where a rocking horse is moving with no one present in the room and the female character is wondering what it is of course. There is build up music at this part and then silence when reaching the rocking horse. This is a suspicious, frightening aspect of the trailer again and it shows spectators what they can expect if going to see the film.

Throughout the trailer there tends to be a lot of sudden camera movements. This aspect shows fright, as well as a sense of danger and emergency. As well as showing clips from the day time, they mostly show footage which is in dark gloomy settings to show the genre of the film more as well as to add terror. Rewinding back to the start of the trailer, it advertises that the film was from the makers of Paranormal Activity and Saw. Personally I think this is a brilliant feature to add into the trailer as it may encourage audiences more to come and watch if they know that these people have made this film after previously watching the other films they have worked on and enjoyed them. There is a point in the trailer which is very frightening. There is the central male character and behind him comes the horror character which tends to be a devil looking character. He is only revealed for a short time but it allows the audience to get an insight to what he is like. It also scares the audience as he is suddenly revealed and is extremely different looking too the other characters. As with all, this movie trailer gives a basis of the storyline to spectators to give them a feel to what it is about.

As there was at the start of the trailer, a montage has been included at the end. This is something which I think is brilliant once again as well as important. With the montage at the start it shew spectators not only the characters contained but what their life was like and them having fun etc. The montage at the end of the film shows the frightening events which they go through because of the devil/spirit causing them problems. It shows the changes in their life in comparison to what they were like before in the first montage and because of this I think that this is particularly important. Of course the release date is placed at the end of the trailer to make people aware when the film is available to view. When this is shown it doesn’t just show the date it has an effect which makes it slightly more frightening. It reads: ‘Everywhere April 1’ instead of just saying ‘April 1’. ‘Everywhere’ has been added to give the impression that the devil/spirit is everywhere as well as the film will be on this date to make spectators slightly more scared than what they already are. Finally at the end of the trailer the main parts have finished as well as credits and so fourth. There just becomes a black screen and people think that trailer has finished completely. All of a sudden there is a horror character that jumps forward at the camera very quickly. This was unexpected for the viewers and makes them jump. I think this was another brilliant aspect added to the trailer overall as it builds up how scary the movie is even more letting spectators know this and therefore encouraging them to come and watch more than wanted to firstly.