Movie Poster Analysis

Over the years the horror movie poster has evolved to create a more enigmatic view of the film it's promoting, allowing audiences to build their own expectations of what the film is about. This is a drastic change from the horror movie posters of the 1970s. One of their main conventions was to include a large quantity of text with peripheral minor images on the poster. The text reveals to the audience the main thesis of the film. The posters for the 1976 films Carrie and The Omen, are excellent examples of this. Furthermore, they also include the convention of using a minimal colour scheme consisting mainly of black, red and white. Typically they use a black background with strong red or ghostly white images; again the poster for The Omen directed by Richard Donner highlights this convention. By using the colours red and white on a black background draws the audience in as these two bold colours act as a dramatic counterpoint to the very dark and almost mysterious feel of the poster. Film promoters in the 1970s, used these techniques to guide the audience towards a certain opinion about the film based on the posters content and layout. Thus making the film's genre immediately identifiable from the layout and colours used on the poster. The problem with this type of presentation is that it lacks mystery. Although, many posters of this genre use a black background which in itself adds a layer of mystery. The fact that there is so much text along with it, does not allow the audience to make an informed decision independently as everything is in front of them. Which if not undertaken carefully could actually mislead the audience and completely miss the film targets audience.

This led to changes in the 1980s. Here film promoters moved to using less text and a single dominant image for the whole of the poster. This can be seen on the movie posters for the 1984 movies Gremlins directed by Joe Dante and A Nightmare on Elm Street directed by Wes Craven. Another convention we can see on these posters is that the minimal colour scheme we saw in the 70s of just predominately black, red and white, being expanded to feature blue.

.....Blue represents calmness and it has this affect on the audience. Allowing movie promoters to play on an audience’s sense of security and also create an illusion and a mystery about the film's genre. It makes the audience more intrigued about the film because the poster is very minimal in the amount of information that it gives them, creating bigger enigmas in the minds of the audience. This is a significant change to what was created in the 1970s.

In the 1990s, we see a radical change to the text/image balance shown on the poster. The prime text seen being the movie's tagline, the rest being all image. Posters for films such as the 1996 film 'Scream' directed by Wes Craven and the 1997 film 'I Know What You Did Last Summer,' directed by Jim Gillespie emphasises the change to the minimal amount of text on the poster. This change could be actually attributed to the Internet. Furthermore, they still use the convention of the black, red and white colour scheme, but unlike the 1980s there are only a few posters that use the colour blue. However, we do see many posters that incorporate the colour yellow. The posters for ‘The Silence of the Lambs' (1991) directed by Jonathon Demme and 'Sleepy Hollow' (1999) directed by Tim Burton show this change. When the colour yellow is used against colours such as black and white, the eye is firstly drawn to dramatic appearance of the yellow and acts as a warning sign within the audience’s mind. The reason for film promoters using this colour is because it has a reverse psychological affect on the audience. The yellow draws them in but because it acts as a warning it makes the audience more fascinated and more inclined to see the film as they know they have been warned against seeing it. .. .

These changes have really influenced movie posters that we see in the 2000s, very few words and only one main focal image. Again, this can be down to the impact that the Internet and viral campaigns have had on the movie poster. With films being marketed in a variety of ways, the movie poster does not need to include as much information about the film as that information is already available to the public. In fact, the poster starts to become one element of wider promotional campaign. The poster does, however, reference to websites and social networking sites for further information and engaging activities for the audience. The movie poster for ‘Jennifer’s Body’ (2009) directed by Karyn Kusama has included on the bottom of the poster the movie’s website. Once on the site it offers audiences links to the film’s official social networking page.

The convention that has remained over the decades is the use of the very specific horror colour scheme consisting of mainly black, white and red. These colours have become a focal part of the horror movie poster, as they create mystery and are also very simple and because of this aspect are able to draw in audience’s that are fans of the horror genre.

For my movie poster, I have arrived at the conclusion, that I will include the conventions of showing the main characters of the film in a ghostly light blue/white effect, just off the centre of the poster on top of a black background. These have been chosen as they are typical of the horror genre and allow the audience to quickly make this connection with this genre. Furthermore, the black background is also used to represent the death and misery that is included within these films. Moreover, the poster will also include as the main image, the killer of the film holding a shiny silver knife dripping dark red blood. This is used because the knife is a part of the iconography of the horror genre. The reason for using these conventions, in this way will create a false sense of security in the mind of the audience with light blue images. But also, due to the lack of text on the poster it will create a sense of mystery and interest that will appeal to our target audience and draw them in.