Poster Research

In this section I have done some research on existing horror movie posters to try and get a feel that would portray our horror teaser trailer well.

This poster comes from Friday the 13th (2009) and in this poster we can see many neat effects that I find appealing and what make it a good poster. First of all we have a pose with the iconic killer Jason from all the previous installments. He is carrying a weapon which in this case is a blade and goes a long with the mise en scene of a killer. The location can be seen as a dark low lit area and he holds a partial silhouette which is typical of the horror genre. But in the case of this poster and of previous installments we can tell that this is the sub genre known as a slasher. What I like about this poster is the fact of the pose showing power and with a mask on to make him a mysterious person.

This poster is from 'Mirrors' this poster shows different conventions from horror then that of the Friday the 13th Poster. This one shows a girl or what seems to be a girl with some demonic looking state. Not much can be seen of the bottom half of the face but I think this all goes in with the idea of her freakish nature if thats what we the audience are meant to see from this. The most noticeable thing I like about this poster is the use of fonts and the fact that one of the 'R's has been reflected to make it look as it if it were a mirror which I find a very clever idea to go with the movie poster. Besides that the poster is similar to that of others with small fonts and question slogans.

This poster comes from a recent horror known as 'My Bloody Valentine' which is also a sequel to the original. This poster surprised me more then most over horror trailers because there is a lack of blood to show that it is a horror movie. The posters only indication of being a horror/thriller is the fact of it saying 'bloody' and the fonts are all red. This can also be boosted by the fact we guess that the killers are the miners we see in the poster and they wield weapons in this case a pickaxe. It has some low key lighting But the idea I would like to portray in my poster is the idea of the killer being masked as it is in this one and in the Friday the 13th poster as well.

This poster is from Eden Lake a new british horror/thriller which has a different idea of a poster comparing it to the others I have researched. As we can the most common convention in the poster is the red writing which gives it that sense of violence or danger. In the background there are four silhouetted people which showers them a more wise and powerful group of people then that of the girl that can be seen behind a tree. They are a mystery to us and the female can gives us the idea of her being the final girl which is common in most horror movies and typical of the horror genre. Low key lighting around the female goes along with more common conventions of horror, the poster gives me a few ideas based around the layout as this is in a landscape orientation.


Using these as some of my research to seeing what is shown on the poster and what rules are applied to give it the overall look and feel of a horror movie. The main conventions I want to portray is the main character being identified, a mystery killer and that black eery surrounding which I believe would give it that horror touch. The slogan also has to be effective as well to entice the audience to go see it or view the teaser.