Production and Deconstuction of Horror Poster

Following our brief to create a horror poster, I created my poster for the movie ‘befriended’. A poster is to make people aware of the product which is trying to be sold. In this case, I am trying to make the audience aware of and want to watch my movie, ‘befriended’. I chose a primary close up photograph of an eye because I wanted to connote intimate thoughts of the antagonist. The solid black pupil is supposed to convey to the audience an insight into the stalker’s mind, the antagonist. The eye is not looking directly at the audience, it is looking just to the left, this is because I want the audience to feel uneasy when looking at the poster.

I used a font which denotes hand written qualities to portray part of my narrative, which is the fact that the stalker writes notes to the victims in the movie. The blood on the bottom left corner of the eye is used to connote that this is a conventional horror film; however it is used to denote that the stalker is a murderer.

For my poster, I have used a female eye, this goes against the social expectations of people thinking that the stalker is a male. The film’s slogan is at the very top of the page because people generally read the title and then look up here to read this. I have used a slogan to give the audience a brief insight into the narrative of the movie, however I have not given it away because I want to attract people and draw them to the film rather than spoiling the plot.

I have used five different font sizes, the largest being the title of the movie, this is because it is the most important and I want it to stand out the most. The title also covers two hot spots which is very important because these are the things which we may be draw to first. The font I have used for the director is also fairly large because I want to draw the audience in to the fact that I have a good director and this is a primary selling point.

I have also included three of the main actors and actresses names as this is a huge selling point with a movie. Although their names are quite small the simple background makes the poster look straightforward and easy to read, also people will want to know which main actors are in the film so this will be read even if it is not on a hot spot.

I have used a white background to represent good, pure and heavenly in juxtaposition with the evil, tainted eye. However it is a metaphor to show that on the outside people can seem innocent but on the inside people can be evil, which depicts the stalker. The image is smudged in to the background to demonstrate that the stalkers evil side is portrayed gradually however I have used just an eye to make the audience want to find out about the rest of the character.

I find the syntagm effective because of the paradigms, such as the solid black pupil and the lines going from the inside of the iris to the outside of the iris. The large area of black shading to the left of the iris contrasts with the smaller white area on the right of the iris. I am originally attracted to the white area first and then the darker area. This represents that the stalkers good, innocent side is first revealed, however she has a dark side to her.