Poster overview

'The Eye' and 'The Grudge ' are both striking and each focus on an eye. Eyes are commonly identified as a way to read a persons emotions, however as these posters have other elements such as the hand and the hair this view of emotions is distorted. 'The Grudge' incorporates darker colours, implying that evil is lurking near by. The face of the person is covered by their black hair too, this may be seen as an attempt to hide from the evil or hide the fact that this person is 'evil'. Not fully exposing a persons face is a common technique used in horror movie posters and draws the audience in to the poster to want to find out more. Stereotypically a person who wears their hair like this and dyes it black would be known as a 'goth' or 'emo' , and this can be linked to the name of the movie 'The Grudge', the name sounds sluggish, lazy and unhygienic. 'The Eye' poster is also simple, with a plain background- which conveys the idea the person is innocent- however taking a second look, one realises there is a hand coming out of the persons eye. Thus linking to the name of the movie 'The Eye', the name will definitely stick in a potential audience members minds. It is impossible for a human hand to be able to leave through a persons eye, yet in 'The Eye' poster the hand seems almost peaceful but needing to get out of the 'eye' or person. This makes the audience wonder what sub-genre this movie may be, possibly a supernatural/paranormal genre. While 'The Grudge' seems to be a slasher movie as the name is coloured in red and the type of text used is rough and rasterised stamp like. Both these posters are simple yet so effective in drawing in an audience, they use opposite colours- however I think I will imitate the dark background of 'The Grudge' as most people will identify with evil hiding in the darkness.

 

 

The next two posters also follow the horror movie conventions of not revealing the persons entire face. This is definitely the case in 'The Crazies' poster, where a mask is employed to ensure the characters face remains hidden and unidentified. This poster is also focussing on where the eye would be or the 'goggle' part of the mask- as it is coloured red, a common colour found in horror movie posters to reflect violence and pain. In the reflection of the 'goggle' we can see three people walking towards the person wearing the mask. The audience will probably assume that this is the evil vilan or character, waiting to attack the people approaching them. Again similar to 'The Grudge' poster the background is black suggesting that evil is hiding and waiting for a victim to attack them. 'Silent Hill' also employs a dark background, and the actress' hair seems to blend into the background. Therefore connoting that she may be being engulfed or enveloped in darkness or evil. Again her whole face is not shown, her mouth has been edited out of the image, which makes her eyes stand out even more. Her eyes like the others in the posters above are open wide and appear to be innocent and child-like. In this case the character in the 'Silent Hill' poster is a child so the audience may feel sympathetic that an innocent child is becoming tarnished by evil. However it is a common convention for horror movies to turn innocent objects into terrifying and frightening objects that we in turn become afraid of. The actress' face looks similar to an old painting, it looks as if there are cracks on her face- which could also be representative of the fact that she as a person is 'broken'. The fact that the actress' mouth is not shown suggests she has a secret that she cannot tell anyone about, and highlights the movie's name 'Silent Hill' quite well as the audience make the link almost immediately and are likely to remember the name.

This poster is the most striking out of the ones I have compared, again the face is not fully visible. However in this 'Shutter' poster the face is made up of images of other people and faces. The background is dark but incorporates reddish colours- which implies there may be blood and gore involved in the movie. The whole image itself looks like an old photograph that has worn away and faded. The audience again cannot see the eyes of this person/creature as they are blackened out, this may be presenting the fact that this person/ creature is indeed evil. The black smudges where the eyes would be placed are smudged downwards as if the person is crying which makes the audience sympathetic. It is questioned whether this person/creature is a witness to or mirroring every bad event that has occurred. It can also be said that it is a collection of memories and that bad memories will never leave a person and may shape them into a twisted, sinister person with no happiness or hope in their lives.