Evaluation Part 1 : How does your trailer challenge forms and conventions?

Evaluation Part 1

My horror trailer uses lots of different conventions to make it a part of the horror genre. As well as different conventions of the horror genre, we also had some auteur influence from other artists. One of my favourite shots of the trailer is the shot in which the scarecrow jumps off the hill towards the camera. In this shot the scarecrow is in silhouette, this connotes an air of mystery as well as showing the contrast of the bright day and the evil character. It is also shot using a low angle "German Expressionist" style of shot, this type of shot helps enforce the character's strength and can be seen in many horror films such as this shot from Halloween (1978). Another person who has had an influence on our trailer is auteur Tom Savini. His work in Dawn of the Dead (1978) inspired us to make a gory red-band trailer, and we aimed to appeal to a mixture of action and gory horror fans.

Gore and "body horror" was an important part of our plans. Our group's favourite genre of horror was action horror, which we found to be the most gruesome in modern films such as Dawn of the Dead (2004). the use of body horror in films now is become a lot more frequent and a lot more violent. The Hays Code that was introduced back in 1933 would not have allowed the level of gore that is used in our trailer, even though it is very little. When the Code was abolished in 1968, body horror became increasingly more common, an example of which would be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Audience's became desensitised to gore due to it's over-use, so it does not have the effect it does now in comparison to what it did in the 60's. In our trailer we decided it would be very hard to create a body horror effect that would be impressive, so we mainly used mild gore such as blood spurts, and then made use of restricted narration to let the audience imagine what would happen to the victim. This can be seen in the shot in which the scarecrow slashes down at a victim he has just grabbed, as blood splatters over him.

After researching other horror trailers on YouTube, we got a sense of the structure that is most effective in a horror highlights trailer. Our trailer fits the conventions of these trailers by using slow intertitles at the start, and an attempt to start character building. In most of the horror trailers that I watched for research the antagonist/monster is not seen. However, I did not think this was very effective, because I didn't feel like I knew what the film was going to contain. Therefore by setting our trailer in the day time, and also showing the main antagonist the audience can clearly see what the film is going to be about. Our killer, as is many horror movies (seen in the compilation video below), is the main selling point of the trailer.

As well as the showing the antagonist, another thing that makes our trailer distinctive is the use of silhouette shots and also the gore effects. The artistic style of the trailer is influenced by various George A Romero films such as Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Land of the Dead (2007).