The Strangers

There is a medium close-up shot of the two main character as they are dancing with each other, a bang is heard and then the medium close-up shows the two as they turn around to see to see where the bang came from. They both look scared as they can’t see what just made the massive bang. The man looks more annoyed with whatever it was as it ruined a special moment between him and his future wife. This shot then cuts to a shot of the window, this is where the suspected noise came from. The curtains to the window is closed, this makes the shot scarier as the neither the character or audience know what made the bang noise.

The is a medium shot of the swing outside of the house. The swing is seen to be moving by itself. This is connoted as being scary because it’s moving furiously to furiously for it to be the wind blowing it, this means that someone was outside either pushing he swing or on the swing. This is a convention of a paranormal horror film, as this normally happens if a child's spirit is haunting a house. As no one is seen on the swing, the couple could think that it is a spirit.

There is a long shot of the girlfriend in the kitchen. The women is literally just standing, and swinging her arms. During this shot, one of the antagonists comes out behind the women from a different room in the house. This connotes that people can get into house very easily without being noticed. The lighting in this shot is high-key towards the front of the shot but low-key towards the back of the room. The high-key lighting just suggests that the one standing in it is the protagonist and the one standing in the low-key lighting is the antagonist.

Camerawork

This is a point of view shot from the male protagonist in the film. The man has just gotten out of his car and start to look around. The location he is in is surrounded by trees, this is conventional of a horror film as they give the antagonists more place to stay hidden so that the protagonists cannot see them.The shot has very low-key lighting which is again very conventional of horror films, for the same reasons, now the antagonists can use the shadows to stay hidden.

Editing

A convention to a horror film trailer is that the last 40 seconds of it is quick duration shots with very quick cuts. This montage of shots is generally action of the antagonists getting violent with the protagonists, or showing the weapons that they are using. The trailer then slows down and ends with the conventional part of the film where the antagonist either scares are finds the protagonists

The establishing shot to this film is of an old, American bungalow, this bungalow has a group of trees in front of it. This is conventional to a horror film at it seems to be set in an old, poor village. The house seems to be very poorly lit which is also a connotation of horror film as a lot of a horror films are seen to be set in dark surroundings. The trees in the front yard give the antagonists places to hide so that the protagonist cannot see them. The cuts of the trailer start in increase in pace straight after the antagonist is introduced, the cuts being the heartbeat of the protagonists because they are fast and constant.

Binary OppositesA conventional binary opposite found in many horror films is good vs evil. This is again seen in ‘The Strangers’ as the couple are fighting for their lives as they are being stalked and attacked by the characters in masks. Another opposite which is seen is Freedom vs captivity, this is seen because the couple are fighting for there freedom over the antagonists who are seen to have them in their grasp.

Mise-en-sceneProps Lighting

Costume/make-up

Staging and performance.

This is a screenshot of the door as the knock is heard by the protagonists of the film. The door is only being lit up by one light by the door. The light is just used as a prop in the film so that the couple can see in their house. Around the door there seems to be a lot of shadows which connote that dark, sinister things are behind the door or could be inside the house.

Like in many of horror films the antagonists of the film seems to be wearing masks through-out the majority of the film. The masks are used to hide the identity of the antagonists so that the antagonist don’t know who is attacking them. Not knowing who the antagonist is makes the film a lot more scary than if the antagonists where known at the start of the film. The mask that the male antagonist is wearing seems to be a tweed sack, this makes him look like a scarecrow, and a scarecrows job is to scare things.

One of the many props used is a wedding ring box. The connotes that the man is going to propose to his girlfriend, this signifies his love for her and the fact that he wants to spend his life with her.

Another prop that is used in the film a lot is a record player. This suggests that this film was set before CD players and MP3 players.

The props which are used is this film to create violence are knives and an axe. Knives are conventional to horror films as they are easy to get hold of and do a lot of damage. Knives can be found in pretty much any house in the whole world.

The male antagonist wearing the tweed mask seems to allow be in the middle of the antagonist. This connotes that he is the main antagonist out of the three and is the one that leads the two women to do what he wants to do. Facial expressions cannot been seen by the antagonists, however the male has a grin drawn onto his mask, making him look harmless but very creepy. The two female antagonists are wearing masks which have blank expressions on, the connotes that they don’t feel anything when they are going round stalking and killing people. The blank expression could suggest that the two females have been hypnotised by the male antagonist, who is making them do all of these terrible things.

Theory’s RepresentationPropps: The heroes in the film are seen as the couple who appear to be being stalked by some people. This is seen as they are trying to save themselves after being attacked by the group. The villains of the film are the people stalking the couple in the house, this is because they look like they are just following the couple and are also seen attacking them as well. The dispatcher in this film are the villains, this is because they are making the heroes fight for there lives.The princess is the women of the couple, this is because she looks to be weaker than the man and not able to defend herself from the villains. The helper in this film is both of the protagonists this is because they are helping each other to save themselves. The need to work together in order to survive.In this film trailer, I can’t identify who the donor, princesses father or the false hero is. This is because not enough information is given to me to identify the roles.

Todorov:The equilibrium of the film is when the house is seen for the first time, this establishes the setting for the film. The next part is when the couple are met for the first time, they can be seen as the main characters because they have a lot of screen time. The setting will make the audience feel safe, as people believe that they should be safe inside their own house.The disruption in the film is when there is a knock at the door, this spooks the main characters, however they don’t think anything of it. The recognition for the disruption is when they go into there house and the lights are in and the record player is on. There is no attempt to repair in the trailer to the film as they don’t wants to give two much information away to the audience.

The women in the film appears to be behind the man in a lot of the film, especially when they are walking through the house after just hearing a noise, this connotes that the women is a lot weaker than the man and needs him to protect her. As the man is in front he actually could be seen as domineering as he may believe his is more powerful than her and therefore should, stereotypically has a duty to protect her

Another stereotype in the film is that it is set at night time, this is conventional to horror films as it makes the film scarier as normally people are sleeping during the night time, which means that no one can hear if something happens.

Another stereotype seen in this film trailer is that men are seen as dominant over women. This is actually seen when the antagonists are standing in front of the sofa which has what I assume is the protagonists sitting on. In this shot the male antagonist is actually standing in-between the two women antagonists connoting him as the dominant one in the group.

SoundThe first sound heard in this trailer is the non-diegetic sound of a piano playing just high notes. As the notes are in a high key it suggests happiness within the couple. The notes are played an equal duration away from each other however as it gets further into the trailer, the notes because more frequent, until there is a bang at the window at which the high notes stop playing altogether. The next sound that stands out is an emphasised sound of a squeaking swing, this has been emphasised as it would make anyone go to the window to see what the noise is. In this case it makes the woman of the couple look out the window to see the swing moving yet no-one on it, which is used to spook the audience. The sound of the swing carries on for a long period of time, even past when the swing can actually be seen. This is used to show strange goings on around the house.There is an atmospheric bang sound when the antagonists are met for the first time. This is used to signify a specific time in the film, in this instance it’s the first time that the protagonists are seeing the antagonists stalking them. Nearing the end of the trailer there is an emphasised bang when (what I assume is thee antagonists) swings an axe through the door of the house and it hits the cabinet which has been placed in front of the door. One of the last stand out sounds is the record player song, which appears to keep on repeat the same phrase over and over again, each time the wait in between getting smaller.

Audience TheoryThis film looks average compared to other and I think that it would achieve a niche audience, only reaching out to certain people who likes horror films. As a horror film, it has a lot of the general conventions i.e. Blood, violence, Stalking, Creepiness and screams, but I still think that only a niche audience would view this film as unlike ‘The Purge’ and ‘You’re Next’ the action seen in the trailer is limited and could be seen as quite tame.

I feel that all horror films are targeted towards the same audience. Using the ITV sales demographics I believe that the main target audience for this film would be anyone in the categories; A3, ME an CH. I think that adults would watch this film firstly because horror films are suppose to be for them, but I believe there is an age limit for adults watching horror films (16-34). I also chose men because men are suppose to be seen as fearless and will sometime watch these types of films when they are on their own. Lastly I chose children, this was hard to say as I don’t know what age group the category ‘Children’ runs to. If it runs to teenagers, then this film is also targeted towards them as teenagers always try to watch the scariest movie that they can when they are young, normally because makes them look good in front of their friends. Using psychographic and the socio-economic groups to find a target audience I think that the main categories to watch this film would be; C2, D and E. I have selected the unemployed because they will have more time to watch films and casual workers because when they get home from work, they feel they need to relax in front of the television. The other two categories that I chose were Unskilled manual workers and skilled manual workers. This is because there income won’t be that high to find them uninteresting and they will also still have a lot of time left in the day to sit down, relax and watch a good film.