Horror magazine cover analysis- Scream

The masthead of the magazine is inspired by the iconic horror film “Scream” and can also be based off of an audience convention of the horror film genre. The title font has denotations of being red and having drips giving it connotations of blood and gory horror which the target audience will look for in the magazine as it has also been established on the main strapline.

The main strapline shown here above the title reads “Blood, Guts, Gore & More” which gives a representation of what’ll be covered in the magazine due to the fact they’re all conventions of the horror genre and it’ll appeal to the target audience of horror movie fans.

The main coverline, “Hatchet Horror”, has denotations of being bold, white and a blood splattered look on the side of the hatchet. The blood splatter denotation stands out as you’d generically expect the font to be red and represent blood, however it’s white and has unnatural, unnerving and out of place connotations giving the font a supernatural, inhuman and unconventional representation which fits into the ideology of the genre that this film, Hatchet, comes from; slasher/ supernatural horror.

The image on the front cover follows a predominately white, blue and black colour scheme which gives the image connotations of being cold and grim and gives the image an empty and haunting representation.

This can also be linked to denotations of coldness, death and an unnatural or supernatural feeling, from the man, resulting in connotations of emptiness and a lack of emotion, especially from the eyes, giving the man representations of fear, heartlessness and brutality which are iconic genre conventions for a slasher villain.