The conventions of a horror film poster

By Sade Williams

The Woman in Black

The use of Daniel Radcliffe’s name in large bold and in this colour, makes the audience more attracted to the film

because he is a well known actor.

The title has been put in a bold white colour on top of the image of Daniel to make the words stand out.Also the type of font used Is very mysterious and ghost like to portray that this is not a comedy/happy film.

The tag line is very short and snappy with only three words ‘fear her curse’. The words automatically make the audience feel on edge as they can infer that the quote is a warning about scary events that occur in the film. The font used here is very simple so that it does not significantly distract the audiences attention from the scary background.

The colour scheme used is very dark and dull colours, consisting of blacks, greys and ghostly whites. The use of these colours add a supernatural as well as a ghostly effect because it is making the audience confront their fears.

The whole image which is also used as a backgrounds purpose is to give the audience a small taster of what the film is about. In this case you can tell that the story line is going to be very frightening because you can see the woman in black standing behind Daniel staring directly at the audience.

Again, on this magazine cover there is the figure of the woman in black standing in the background staring directly at the audience to frighten them.

The background colours used are very dark and gloomy to signify that this in fact in a horror film.

The use of white and bold font has been used again to make the masthead stand out and to link both the magazine cover and poster together.

The clothes Daniel is wearing is used to portray the century that the film is set in and also to signify the link between what he is wearing in both the poster and this cover.

Sweeney Todd

The main colours used in this poster are black, red and white. These colours are very gothic style which makes the audience understand that this is a horror film. These colours in particular represent death, danger, blood, revenge and threat.

The main figure in the poster is Johnny Depp as the main character. The image of him is used as a persuasive technique as he is a very popular male actor. He is wear all black and white to show that his character is evil.

The title ‘Sweeney Todd’ is represented in a big font but is not the main focus of the poster. The splash of the colour red sweeping through the title is used to portray visual images of blood and danger.

The poster being mainly in black and white could be representing the time period that the film is set in. e.g not the modern day.Also the fact that the poster deliberately leaves the barbers chair red, signifies that the chair is where the murder takes place.

The tag line is very short and snappy and signifies that Sweeney Todd’s character is not from the good side as they refer to him as the ‘demon’ barber.

The reference to big ben through the window shows that this film is set in London, and that the location must be in an attic.

This magazine cover shows Johnny Depp to be wearing the same old fashioned clothes that are worn in the poster worn again here. However in this image, there is blood on the sleeves of his shirt. This confirms the audiences suspicion that this is a horror film and that the character of Sweeney Todd is very dangerous.

The quote ‘Johnny Bloody Johnny’ refers to how this film is linked with blood and death and how Johnny Depp’s character inflicts this.