Film Poster Overview

The reasoning behind a film poster is to promote a film by drawing in the target audience and they do this using specific iconography to help establish which genre and sub-genre the film belongs to. Film posters, in general, have certain codes and conventions that they follow. These include a title, usually the name of the movie, which is the largest text in the frame, a main image which will inform the target audience about something important in the narrative and which will be the most significant piece of the poster and then a tagline to anchor the image. I have chosen these eight posters, within the supernatural sub-genre, to carry out an over-view of their shared features. By doing so it will allow me to identify the repeated patterns and so therefore help me understand the codes and conventions specific for supernatural horror movie posters. By using horrific images and other symbolic reference associated with the horror genre it will appeal to the correct target audience.

One feature which is fairly obvious is that all of these poster have the main female character as the main image. It can be assumed, that these posters are trying to imply that the narrative for the films focus on the female protagonist and her journey through the movie, in which she tries to defeat the evil spirit which is disrupting her equilibrium. The use of a female in a terrifying situation and experience extreme levels of terror is a lot more realistic than seeing a man panicking hysterically. 

Another common feature all these posters share is that the main female character in the image is being possessed/tormented by a demon or spirit. In‘The Last Exorcism’ poster we see a female character who is clearly possessed by an evil spirit as she is levitating and her limbs are bending in a way not possible for a human being; this is typical supernatural iconography  Similarly in ‘The Devil Inside’ poster, the mise-en-scene shows a women with a cross cut in her lip, which suggest to the target audience that she is also under the possession of a spirit. It can also be said that the main female character is made to look disturbed and frightening to satisfy the audience’s horror-seeking needs and to start up their curiosity so that they go to watch the movie. This type of supernatural iconography will help audience identify the genre of the movie.

As mentioned earlier the title is the most important piece of text on the poster and it is interesting that six out of the eight posters have titles which have been distorted in some way. This perhaps could indicate the presence of a supernatural being or mirror the disturbance that the protagonist will encounter. For example ‘The possession’ title looks as if it has been scratched violently, therefore matching the violent main image. A tagline is also important on a film poster and four of the eight shown include this. The tagline is used to promote the narrative of the film but to also provide anchorage for the image. The tagline on ‘The Others’ poster states ‘sooner or later they will find you’ which fits in with image of the protagonist, standing in the dark and looking as if she is hiding from someone/something. 

The colour schemes of the posters also seem to be similar. Black is a colour which connotates, the unknown, death, evil and mystery, these are all the things supernatural movies represent too and so this is why six of the eight posters predominately use the colour black. ‘the grudge’ poster uses a close up image of the antagonist and black is used to contrast with her red eye. The black background emphasise the piercing glare so that the audience get sucked into the poster; it allows them to feel as if the character is staring straight into them. Similarly to the colour black, mist is another method use to symbolise the unknown and danger and this is shown in two of the posters. ‘the exorcism of Emily rose’ shows the protagonist looking some what lost amongst the mist suggesting that in the narrative she ‘loses’ her way because of the possession. Whereas in ‘ silent hill’ the protagonist is walking towards ‘silent hill’ and mist surrounds her to show the audience that ‘silent hill’ is dangerous and the character ahead does now know what lies ahead. Another popular colour is red; red has obvious connotation of blood, danger and evil. In ‘the grudge’ red is used to represent blood in the characters eye. Eye is the window to the soul and so the tainted eye could represent a tainted soul. Similiary to ‘the grudge’ ‘sinister’ also uses red to display blood however in this case, the audiences sees the blood dripping from the touch of a young girl alongside a damaged wall, and the blood goes on to form a disturbing image of something ‘sinister’ and evil. 

All of the eight posters present institutional information that is placed at the bottom of the poster, so it does not distract the audience’s attention from the main image. Along with the institutional information, the posters also have texts such as ‘based on a true story’ and ‘from the makers of paranormal activity and insidious’ to draw in the audience. The idea of the movie being based on a true story will amplify the fear within them as it makes the whole experience more realistic; they will start to feel that the same thing will happen to them. All of these text are often in a basic, simple sans-serif font so that they are easy to read.

All of these poster are successful in frightening their audiences. They do so with simple text and a dominant main image which will open up the audience’s curiosity and so they will go to watch the movie.