The Conjuring (2013) trailer review

Name of film- The Conjuring
Genre- Horror
Year released-2013
Your mark after viewing- 8/10

What happened in the trailer?
The trailer is a scene trailer and starts by showing the family running into the house. After the studio logos, it cuts to the mother and children playing a game where the mothers blindfolded and searches around the house listening for clapping so she can find them. She stumbles into a bedroom with a wardrobe that opens by itself and a pair of hands emerges and claps. She searches in the wardrobe for a child but when she turns around the child runs into the room. There is an intertitle here. The next cut sees her sort out some laundry when she hears clapping. Upon investigating she hears a loud crash behind her as all the pictures on the wall have fallen down and childish laughter is heard. There is an intertitle here. She goes downstairs and hears clapping, before eventually heading towards to the basement as its door mysteriously opens. She peers in and turns on the light to see an empty room but before she leaves the door slams in her face and the light blows. She strikes a match and over her right shoulder a pair of hands emerges and claps next to her. The trailer end with a music box playing and the name of the film being displayed.

What positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are well fulfilled?
There were many positive aspects of this trailer that covered a variety of horror genre conventions. For example the trailer was set in a creepy location with moderately low key lighting to give the mise-en-scene creepy, dark, evil and lonely connotations to represent how horrible and haunted the house is. The trailer also features the restricted narration element of mise-en-scene by having a series of picture frames fall off a wall and clatter to the ground off shot. This connotes mystery and suspense, and coupled with the parallel music of mischievous childish laughter, it represents that supernatural forces are at work and haunting the family. The pictures shattering also acts as collision cutting between quiet and loud, ambient and parallel sound effects connoting that the shattering acts as a trigger for the ghost attacks and that the increased volume in music represents that as the trailer goes on the haunting will continue. The trailer also features contrapuntal music at the end with the music box. This music is out of place compared to the quick paced parallel music and has connotations of childhood and innocence. This isn’t the only example of collision cutting in the trailer as it goes from a slow paced montage when the pictures fall of the wall to a quick paced montage when the mother is investigating the house and the basement. When the door slams it returns to a slow paced montage, ready for the final jump scare and catch the audience off guard so they get connotations of fear and surprise. The trailer also features intertitles. The first reads “based on a true story” to connote fear and put audience on edge and represent it’s real. The second intertitle states it’s “from the director of Saw and Insidious” and connotes if you like these films you’ll like this one as it’s from the same auteur, James Wan. The trailer also makes use of the cinematography conventions of the horror genre.  Shaky handheld cam is used in the slow paced montage when the mother is blindfolded to connote stumbling and a physical instability whilst it’s used in the quick paced montage of investigating the house to build fear and tension with the shakiness connoting a mental instability from the ghost. This thus represents that handheld shots focus on an unsteadiness of character and try to make the audience feel uneasy.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?
I thought there wasn’t much that acted as disappointing or off putting for the target audience except the scene trailer only highlights one scene and doesn’t represent the entire film or the rest of the main characters like the Warrens who are key to the films narrative.

Why did it receive the mark you gave it?
It received the mark I gave it due to the wide use of horror conventions used in the scene trailer, through the use of cinematography, editing, sound and mise-en-scene. The trailer also has haunting connotations and makes the audience fear for the family and be afraid of the ghost we see so little of. 

Paranormal Activity (2009) trailer review

Name of the film- Paranormal Activity
Year released- 2009
Film genre- Horror
Your mark after viewing- 6/10

What happened in the trailer?
The trailer started by showing a queue of people about to enter a cinema to see Paranormal Activity. Once they’re all seated the film starts and we’re shown a variety of highlights form the film and we also get the narrative established and find out that a couple are living with a ghost who’s hauntings become progressively worse and intrusive and results in them setting up a camera in order to capture the actions as they unfold.  The trailer builds up a quick paced montage and ends in a jump scare where a body flies backwards towards the camera followed by giving “tour dates” for the film before its general release.

What positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?
The trailer has clever and interesting aspects surrounding it including the usage of shaky handheld camera shots, a cinematography convention, in order to connote fear, uncertainty and represent that the characters are amateurs in filming, similar to the group in The Blair Witch Project (1999) who are an amateur group too. As the trailer progresses it, it returns to a motif of a wide shot with the couple lying in bed as different supernatural events happen around them. The return to this wide shot connotes it’s a central location for the narrative of the film. The trailer also features collision cutting, from a slow pace to a quick pace, when the bedroom door slams and connotes the start of a quick paced montage. The door slam also signals another collision cut between quiet and loud with a static noise that connotes interference and represents that the ghosts are intruding on the couple. As the trailer gets close to the end the static parallel music increases in volume representing that the ghosts are becoming more intrusive and haunting as the film would go on. The quick paced montage also features a heartbeat noise which picks up in pace, connoting fear, tension and anxiety and is parallel to the feelings felt by both the characters of the film and the audience. The intertitles also give positive reviews of the film connoting that it would be god to see as it’s received so much praise from different sources. The quotes are also small and readable so the audience can read them for the short time they’re on the screen.

What aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?
The unsuccessful, disappointing and off-putting aspects of the trailer for the target audience include the shots from inside the cinema where people are watching the film live. The reason this is off-putting is because you can the audiences’ heads illuminated by the green night vision light which distracts you from the movie footage. Due to the low key lighting of the cinema and the green light emitted, the high key cinema screen looks it’s been added in the editing process and makes the screen have connotations of being fake and amateur.
The trailer also ruins the only jump scares the film has to offer and shows of the scariest bits of hem film representing the fact that the audience will already be prepared to watch the film and won’t be as easily shocked or spooked by the film. On top of this the ghosts presence and attacks in the trailer weren’t scary enough and used a cliché of horror conventions to connote supernatural fear and suspense by using techniques like slamming doors, moving chandeliers and no footsteps in flour that’s been placed on the ground.

Why did it receive the mark you gave it?
Despite the fact it used a variety of horror conventions it also spoiled the main aspect of the narrative and didn’t leave much for the target audience to figure out. It also showed the main jump scare which appears at the end of the film, along with the other scariest pats of the film, meaning the audience won’t be as scared or shocked as they’ll have literally seen it all before. Also, like the Day of the Dead (1985) trailer, it also shows shots from inside a cinema which is very off-putting and distracting and draws the audience away from the action and horror of the film.

Class Research: Favourite Type of Horror

My personal favourite sub-genre of horror is psychological horror

Priest poster with feedback

Shooting schedule

Shotlists for Priest

Shot 9-11 dialogue;

Shot 9; Priest: 'It's nice to finally meet you , your arrival could be the fresh start our parish needs'
Shot 10; Female Vicar: *nervous laugh* 'Why would smallton need a fresh start?'
Shot 11; Priest; *leans in and whispers* 'It's crawling with sin and damnation...'

Running time for trailer; 1 minute 46 seconds
Number of close ups; 24

Alien (1979) trailer review

Name of film- Alien
Genre- Horror
Year released-1979
Your mark after viewing- 9/10

What happened in the trailer?
The trailer starts by showing a rocky surface, resembling a planet’s surface but after zooming out to a wide shot it turns out to be an egg that cracks and emits a blue light. Following this, the trailer becomes a highlight trailer showing certain scenes from the movie before finishing on a shot of the Nostromo and the caption “In space, no one can hear you scream” before cutting to the name of the film.

What positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are well fulfilled?
There were many positive aspects of this trailer that covered a variety of horror genre conventions. The trailer featured a slow paced montage, in the form of the rocky egg with the planet like surface. This in turn reinforces the representation of the link between the alien being from a strange and uninhabited world and how it first appears in the film. This gives connotations of tension and suspense, to make the audience feel paranoid and uncertain about what’s going on. The trailer also had a quick paced montage, in the form of the highlighted shots from the film that are edited together to give connotations of excitement, mystery and fear.

This change between the quick and slow paced montage is collision cutting and happens at a point in the trailer when the egg cracks to emit a blue light connoting a supernatural fear and danger that then leads into the quick paced montage. The egg crack is also accompanied by a loud scream that also acts collision cutting between the quiet howling wind parallel music and the loud high pitched drone plus quickening heart beat that connotes fear and tension. The trailer ends with the parallel music cutting out rapidly and screaming taking its place as a shot of the Alien egg hatching appears representing that if the Alien hatches then it only results in screaming and fear. This representation of the Alien only making you scream plays with the tagline of the film; ‘In space no-one can hear you scream’. This tagline and the wide shot of the Nostromo ship in space gives the ideology that screaming is useless as there’s no-one there to help and gives connotations of hopelessness and futility.

The trailer also features shaky, handheld shots in a creepy location featuring low key lighting of someone running to connote fear of the unknown and keep the alien threat a mystery to the audience.

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful and would put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?
I thought there was little that acted as disappointing or off putting for the target audience except maybe the fact that the narrative isn’t explained at all in the trailer and could lead to confusion from the audience members.

Why did it receive the mark you gave it?
It received the mark I gave it due to the use of haunting parallel music, collision cutting and the fact that the narrative isn’t given away from the variety of the shots shown, giving the trailer connotations of mystery, horror and suspense and thus represents accurately the main ideologies of the film.

Type of horror trailer we want to make

The type of trailer we are going to make is a highlights trailer because this will allow us to show off the best bits from our film to grab the audience’s attention. This type of trailer is the most common, and its content can be seen in the trailer below.

Our trailer for Priest will also focus on collision cutting as this gets across the emotion of what is happening throughout the film and will also briefly tell the audience what the plot line of the film is. The trailer will also need some jump scares to grab the audience’s attention so they remember our film, and come and see it when it comes to the cinema. An example of a jump scare in a trailer is the woman in black trailer which has a good jump scare so the audience remember the film.

Just before the jump scare there needs to be a build of suspense so the jump scare becomes scarier as no-one will be expecting it, and that is what good horror trailers are remembered for.

A good film that uses this type of trailer is Dawn of the Dead (2004) as this uses all of the good aspects of a horror trailer that we should try to feature in ours, such as good collision cutting and good use of body horror.

These generic features clearly help the trailer indicate an Action Horror film so the audience knows if our genre/sub-genre is the right film for them to watch.

Stereotypical horror fan

Our stereotypical horror fan is a male called Gary Knights (left). His day job is being an a electrician but once he gets in from a hard day of fixing plugs and wiring sockets he likes to sit down and immerse himself in classic horror films like Night of the Living Dead, Psycho and The Shining. Apart from horror films Gary likes playing video games, either by himself or online with other people, playing guitar, going bowling or spending time with his girlfriend Liz Mendoza, pictured centre. He met Liz at a special screening of Troll 2 and after both disliking the film thought dating each other might be better. Gary dislikes few things as he is a hardened man from the levels of horror he’s watched but he most definitely dislikes romantic comedy films and broccoli along with having an up and down relationship with his clingy younger brother Keith who sometimes doesn't get the hint he isn't wanted.

Gary’s demographic profile concludes that he is a 28 year old, white British male at the upper end of the working class living in London. His psychographic is reformer as he tries to change the mainstream in an attempt to make the world a more positive place.

Moodboard

1- We have chosen to include the infamous killer Ed Gein within our mood board because we have decided to base our killer 'Father Crowthorne' on his innocent nature to the point where people contextually didn't suspect him. We feel that this change will have the ability to shock audiences more as opposed to having an outright killer.

2- Jekyll and Hyde is another ode to the idea of two sides to people in one persons body, this way we can really emphasise the idea of a monster character residing under the innocent and calming layer of a religious figure. Dr. Jekyll in the novel was a respected gentleman throughout the town, and people came to him for advice and services,  but little did they know he turned into a murderer after the transformation.

3-For the third image on our mood board, we chose to include a historical figure of Father Hans Schmidt of Germany. In 1913, Schmidt was having a sexual relationship with a housemaid, who he got pregnant. After finding out about this, Schmidt slit her throat and cut her up, disposing of her body in the East River. We chose to include him because we felt we could base our killer around Hans and his murderous intentions.

4- Norman Bates, is the sweeter side to a schizophrenic personality from Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) We have included Bates because much like the Hans Schmidt choice, we can base the sweeter side of our killer 'Father Crowthorne' around that. Hitchcock's choice of this innocent character made the 'big reveal' all the more satisfying for audiences, we hope to recreate that effect within our own horror trailer.

5- The graveyard is within our mood board for a couple of reasons, the first being that it is a typical location within the horror genre. At night it can be used as a very spooky and creepy location in which the main action of a horror movie can happen. As a group, we wanted to include a scene within a graveyard for an ironic reason as well as a sickening one for our audiences, the irony being people dying in a place where the dead are already buried. 

6- Our horror trailer is going to have a really Gothic feel to it, in the sense that we have a priest murdering "sinners"and this is why we have included one of the most influential horror writers to date. Edgar Allen Poe made it onto the mood board because his work is creepy and a good example for horror fans. We wanted to pay ode to Edgar Allen Poe by looking at his texts and possibly using some of his work to influence our creative process.

7- NUN (2005) is a movie about a ghost nun who has come back to haunt former students, we felt we should include this on our mood board because it's similar to what we want to do with the idea of a religious figure murdering for the sake of it, but rather than have an apparition doing the haunting, we want an actual serial killer.

8- For one of the highlights within our trailer, we wanted to have "holy water" burning away at a victim's face. If we are to do this then we need to recreate the effect with latex and the building up of layers using tissue paper. We needed to research into different horror makeup effects with latex for burns and the one of the mood board is the one we wish to try and recreate, it looks severe and very bloody. As a group we wanted to have gore in the trailer, and this is how we wish to do it.

9- This is a piece of religious art depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ whilst pictured inside a larger picture of Jesus Christ's head. Our group felt inspired by this art work because it helps to capture the mood of the church we'll be using to shoot our trailer within. We felt we needed to look into and include religious art and texts in order to capture the overall feel of the location.

10- This is a picture of the actual church we will be filming our trailer at, we felt we should include it on our mood board because it will be the main setting for the trailer, also a church is a typical horror location, and helps to tie in with the graveyard location well. This way we shall have a continuous ambiance throughout the trailer.

11-The picture of the mist is included in the mood board because firstly, mist is a natural horror convention, and is used to deceive and disorientate audiences. we included this because mist is also because it has an element of the unknown, and that's what we wish to capture within our trailer. We want to shock audiences with stuff they don't see coming.

12- This line from William Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' is interesting because it pays tribute to biblical terms, it mentions hell and how that devils ram the earth. this comment about people being evil is interesting as it's how we wish to base our killer character, we want him to be part demon underneath the skin of an innocent priest.

13- This is an image that is relevant to the context of the time, we now have female priests being included within the church system. We wanted to include the female priest because we are using a 'final girl' whom is a priest and it's through her purity that she tries to eradicate the father.

14- The director Tom Six has been included on our mood board because we want to push boundaries within our trailer much like the movies of Tom Six. One of our shots is a male victim being penetrated through the skull with a crucifix which is a controversial idea in itself. Our trailer wants to include some of the raw cinema elements within it that makes it difficult to watch in order to help convey the idea of horror in a big way to our audiences.

Health and Safety form

Synopsis

Father Crowthorne, priest of the parish Smallton, finishes his weekly service and talks to members of his congregation as they leave. On the way out Mrs. Dawes, an elderly woman, states how small the congregation has become and how some “young blood” is needed. The Father replies that a young female Vicar is moving to the church and they both agree it’ll be for the best to keep sin away. Before leaving, he starts to hear whispering and as he gets closer to the back of the church it gets stronger but disappears before he gets to close. Slightly shaken he leaves the church and goes home but before he falls asleep he hears the whispering again.

The next day, whilst the Father is walking through the town he sees someone moving in to an old house and greets them. He discovers that it’s the new female Vicar; Reverend Kerry O’Reilly and her husband Andrew. She invites him in, and over tea, they talk about her backstory, why she moved. The Father thanks her for coming and states he believes there’s too much sin in the world before leaving to go to the church.

On the way to the church, he sees people closing up their shops for the night or walking their dogs and haves casual passing conversations. He arrives at the church just as night falls to lock up and after inspecting it, he makes a prayer. He turns to leave and halfway down the aisle hears the whispering. As he gets closer to the source it tells him to kill sinners and becomes so loud that it drives him to his knees, screaming before he passes out. After he wakes up he gets out of the church, and sees two lovers in the graveyard. Influenced by the words he hears; he murders the pair with a crucifix as they try to escape, whilst quoting the Bible.  After the act is done the Priest drags the bodies through to a corner of the graveyard finds a shovel and buries the bodies.

The following Sunday Reverend O’Reilly prepares for her first sermon and gets to the church early with her husband. Father Crowthorne is sitting in the first pew, muttering to himself and when disturbed appears startled and worried. Throughout the service Reverend O’Reilly keeps looking at a shaking Father Crowthorne and after the service he disappears into his office without saying a word despite being approached by the Reverend. In his office he looks at the cut on his wrist from the first murder before sitting back and falling asleep. He wakes up to hear noise outside and investigates but is attacked by a group of 3 boys and gets cut on his head. They are stealing but, before they escape, Father Crowthorne kills one of the boys by bashing his head against a wall and knocks one out after a fight whilst the other boy escapes. All the while he is chanting the Bible.

The 2^nd boy awakes tied to a chair where after a short dialogue with Father Crowthorne is baptised in “holy” acid water. The cut on the Fathers wrist enflames and his skin burns. The 3^rd boy has ran to the Reverend’s house and explained the situation. O’Reilly, her husband and the boy make their way up to the church and when they enter they see the corpse still tied to the chair at which point a burned Father Crowthorne appears. He explains he has to kill to eradicate sin. The 3^rd boy is pounced by Crowthorne and has his neck chewed before being pulled off by Andrew who he in return kills with knife. He then lunges in to kill O’Reilly and after a short scuffle they end up on their knees. Crowthorne starts to approach O’Reilly who prays for her live when Crowthorne grabs her throat. His hands start to burn up and he lets go of her as she’s pure and innocent. With his power spent he falls to the floor and O’Reilly sees the devilish mark on his wrist and discovers he’s part demon. He asks to die as he realises he’s sinned and as a way of peacefully killing him, O’Reilly forgives him and places a hand on his cheek resulting in him turning to dust. With Crowthorne dead she goes to her husband’s corpse and starts to mourn. The film ends with O’Reilly hearing a faint whispering.

Zombieland film review

Zombieland movie review

Film title: Zombieland
Year of production: 2009
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Genre: Action/ comedy horror

Brief plot outline
A zombie plague has ravaged America and killed a majority of the population. One socially awkward teenager survives the epidemic by sticking to his 32 rules and bumps into the wild and vicious Tallahassee who he soon befriends. Soon after they come across a pair of sisters; Wichita and Little Rock and, after a rocky start, head to California. Their aim is to reach Pacific Play Park whilst killing as many zombies as they can.

Which two scenes impress you the most and why?
The opening title sequence impressed me as it sets the scene for a zombie apocalypse perfectly as it shows the zombies quickly taking over the USA to turn into the dystopian ‘Zombieland’. It also represents the zombies to be quicker, smarter and more overpowering, breaking horror genre convention of traditional zombies to connote they are something more terrifying, with each shot of the slow paced montage featuring humans running away from the zombie threat, connoting that humans are weak and scared. The parallel music of Metallica’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ further representing that death is inevitable and the weaker humans don’t stand a chance.
The second scene that impressed me was ‘Pacific Play Park’ as the scene felt a lot like the final battle in the mall in Dawn of the Dead (1979). This is due to the connotations of the survivors facing overwhelming odds against the zombies. Like Dawn of the Dead (1979) it also has the ideology of an idyllic place becoming ‘a prison’ (quote; Fran, Dawn of the Dead (1979)) due to the representation of consumerism and the desire to go somewhere fun and exciting to pass the time.

How has watching the film helped me understand this genre?
This film covered many of the areas on the genre checklist. One aspect is the characters and the fact that they all survive, resulting in an unconventional lack of “final girl” character, but rather a “final group” as they all stuck to the motif of the 32 rules throughout the film. This reinforces the ideology that following rules and being good in the horror genre results in your survival. Tallahassee portrays the strong male hero character due to his skill with phallic weapons which only represent his masculine role. He’s similar to Peter from Dawn of the Dead (1979) except he’s a southern redneck, the one group that the auteur Romero represented to be bad. The fact that a redneck is a male hero connotes a change in historical context where all humans are represented equally.
For mise-en-scene, body horror is present in the multiple zombie kills and Tallahassee’s melee kills specifically in the store. Restricted narration is also used for the “Rule 4” scene where a man dies on the toilet. Another example of this is when Tallahassee chops of a zombie’s head with a pair of secateurs.
Parallel music is used in the majority throughout the film with Johnny Cash’s ‘I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry’ being used to represent Tallahassee’s sad emotions which is also effective for him as a character as it reinforces the southern country stereotype.
Zombieland also features a variety of editing techniques. Slow paced montages are used when Tallahassee is telling his backstory to connote tension and sadness, quick paced montages are used for action scenes like in Pacific Play Park where hordes of zombies are dying quickly and collision cutting is used with examples being no parallel music to parallel music when Wichita and Columbus kiss with the music connoting power and a heroic coolness, in turn representing what Columbus has become.
In terms of cinematography, there’s a close up of Columbus when a girl known as “406” attacks him giving connotations of fear and panic. The beginning of the film also features a canted handheld angle which rotates from being upside down to the right way up that connotes a scared uncertainty of the Zombieland.

Which aspects of the film would you like to include in your own trailer?
I’d like to include the deep and interesting characters, like the ones present in Zombieland. I liked that they had a very strong connection despite the limited backstory that resulted in them becoming a ‘family’ at the end of the film. That connection represents horror is able to bring people together and act together to defeat it, a representation I’d like to include in my film.
The other aspect of the film I’d like to include is a fast paced monster that would add more tension and can be edited in a quick paced montage of chase or murder scenes. Fast paced monsters are also conventionally smarter than a horde of slow moving monsters meaning that some scenes of psychological horror and voyeurism can be included.

Which aspects of the film would you like to avoid in your own trailer?
I’d like to avoid the comedic subgenre that’s present with the horror and action. The comedy is hard to replicate and a more serious film would be easier to make as the comedy wouldn’t need to be written in. The other aspect I didn’t want in the film would be zombies as the idea is to focus the narrative around one killer priest.

What was the best aspect/more enjoyable moment in the film and can it be recreated in your film?
For me the best aspect of the film was the characters close natural connection and limited backstory which allowed the characters to develop easily as the narrative progressed. This can be recreated in our film as we could have a small band of characters form together to try and kill the priest.

How does the film reflect the institutional or historical context? Analyse two scenes/events that reflect the time this film was made?
One event that reflects the historical context of Zombieland is the scenes from ‘Pacific Play Park’, the theme park that Wichita and Little Rock want to visit. The fact they want to hold up there connotes the boom in their popularity, especially with the younger generation are attracted to them. It’s similar to the way the auteur George Romero represented people to be attracted to malls in Dawn of the Dead (1979) as, for the context of the time they were exciting and new, like how theme parks were new and exciting to Little Rock in Zombieland.
The other significant event is Tallahassee’s obsession with Twinkies which is highlighted several times throughout the film. His search connotes an addiction to junk food and represents that without it, his life would fall apart. This addiction to junk food also represents the consumerist US culture with that even in the zombie apocalypse the male hero still craves the normality of processed food in an attempt to try and feel better and also explains the number of “fatties”, as Columbus calls them that appear at various points throughout the film.