Audience Feeback On Clips We've Filmed

This is an audience feedback on the clips that we have shot so far. The shots we have filmed will not be used in our final piece because we have changed the narrative so the clips will not be needed. From her reaction it's clear to tell that she didn't find it at all scary and it seemed more like a comedy to her as she kept laughing. At some points she seemed bored and was waiting for something really interesting to happen but it never came. When making a horror trailer, I want my audience to be captivated by what they're being shown and not seem bored by it. In the final horror trailer I want the trailer to establish the genre and actually have an affect on the audience by making them scared. I feel the key to a good horror trailer is having the audience actually frightened and have moments where they jump and want to watch more of it. The only thing I enjoyed for this rough copy for our old narrative was the sound used over the footage. The soundtrack sounds quite scary and fits well with the horror genre. It was good to get an audience feedback to know where we've gone wrong and to know what we can do to change it and improve so that it actually looks like a horror trailer. This feedback has shown me that the clips we filmed were really not that scary and more comical than anything, it made me definitely want to change the narrative so that we could have a better trailer in the end, I wouldn't want that reaction from a bigger audience watching the final copy.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)

 Wrong Turn 2: Dead End was a gruesome horror  film. From the right beginning of the movie there  was a lot of blood as one victim had her lips bitten  off by a deformed human and then she got sliced in  half with an axe by another deformed human  which was evident in the trailer. It automatically  establishes the genre of the movie by having that  in the first 10 minutes of the movie. It also  occurred in daylight which shows how ruthless the  villains are and they're prepared to kill no matter  who sees. Isolated settings were used as the film was shot in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Woods is a typical place for horror films to be shot as there are less people around which means the victims won't get the help needed when getting attacked by the villain.

The title of the film 'Wrong Turn 2: Dead End'  already shows that something bad is happening.  The dead end makes it seem as there's no way for survival among the victims. Several weapons were used in the making of this film such as knives and axes. Other weapons were used as well which established the sub genre of this horror movie as a slasher. Unlike typical horror films most of the movie was shot in the day time as the concept of the film was based on people being on a reality show. In the end there was two survivors: Jake and Nina. The final girl theory could be applied here for Nina because she was the only female to survive but a male survived as well so the theory may not apply. Stereo typically in horror movies, males are the killer and in this case that was how it was. All the deformed humans who were killing people were male.

The twist at the end of the movie showed how one of the deformed humans were still alive. When Jake and Nina left it was evident that they thought they had killed all of the villains but the one who survived (Three-Finger) was seen feeding the mutant baby that had been born earlier in the movie. Having Three-Finger and the baby at the end indicates a sequel to the movie and shows how the villains were not defeated in the end.

The Strangers (2008)

I watched the film 'The Strangers' and I loved the film, although it's a horror I didn't get that scared but I feel this is because some things are predictable and I've seen so many I've become accustomed to what typically happens in horror movies. This film is able to keep a viewer on the edge of their seat, there are so many moments where you feel sorry for the victims in the film. The best part of the movie to me is keeping the villains faced masked right up until the last moments of the movie. This was affective to me because it's better seeing a masked villain as their identity is hidden and in a way it makes it more scary and makes you want to watch the film till the end just to find out who is behind the mask.

On the movie poster, the line at the top says 'because you were home', this ties in with what the movie was based on. The director Bryan Bertino said "As a kid, I lived in a house on a street in the middle of nowhere. One night, while our parents were out, somebody knocked on the front door and my little sister answered it. At the door were some people asking for somebody who didn't live there. We later found out that these people were knocking on doors on the area and, if no one was home, breaking into the houses". In this film it reflects the events that happened to the director in his childhood but then again it's the opposite. As they were home they were targeted which is different from Bryan Bertino, it seems that because they were in the house, they were targeted the whole night and became victims to the villains.

This movie subverted and conformed to the conventions of a horror movie at the same time. The subversion was typically there is one killer/villain whereas in this movie there were three and also there was two female villains and one male. Typically in horror movies, the villain happens to be male but this time there were two females and one male. Although there are two females, the male was still able to dominate the females and he was the leader of them. From the poster the masks for the women only cover their face but illustrates to an audience that one has blonde hair and one has short black hair. The male has a sack mask over his whole entire head leaving no clues as to what he looks like or his hair. Even in the movie when the blonde woman first appeared, her face was hidden from viewers with the use of low lighting so it was hard to make out her identity. It also had conventions of horror such as isolated settings. Isolated settings make it easier for danger to be present as there's no one around to help or even communicate with. A lot of the movie was filmed in the night which makes it more scary as it's dark and easier for characters to pop up and make an audience jump as they wouldn't expect it.

One of my favourite scenes was at the end of the movie where all the villains took it in turns to stab the two main characters. This was one of my favourite scene for several reasons. One reason being that blood and weapons were shown which are iconography of horror. The weapon used was a knife and it was intense to watch them slowly stabbing the victims. The villains got pleasure out of seeing their victims suffer and that made the film even better for me as a viewer who can't believe someone could be so evil. At the end there was a twist where we thought both the victims had died but the main girl survived which was not expected. I didn't jump but it was a shock and she appeared to be the final girl, surviving over her husband who died. I think it was good that she survived because the final girl theory could be applied, she got stabbed several times and still had the strength to survive.

Research Into Title Of The Horror Trailer And Character Names For Old Narrative

The title of the movie we have chosen for the horror trailer will be 'The Voyeurist' as the narrative is about a girl who is being watched and stalked so the narrative will link in quite well with the title of the film. I researched whether there was already a film by the same name and there didn't appear to be any so it was better making a trailer with a name that hadn't already been taken.

A lot of research went into the names of the villains and the main character. The final girl is called 'Riley' which connotes strength, as we used the final girl theory, the final girl represents strength as they typically survive in the end. The villains are named 'Phoenix' and 'Loki'. I researched what Loki and Phoenix meant and they had bad connotations which fitted well with their characters. The etymology of the name Phoenix derived from Greek (Phoinix) meaning "dark red". The colour red connotes blood and represents danger. Being a horror trailer, blood is likely to be involved as it's an iconography of horror that comes up the most and the victim who is Riley is in danger, the person causing the danger will be Phoenix and Loki so the name fits well with Phoenix. Loki represents evil and is the name of an evil trickster God from the 18th Century.

Research Into Horror Trailers - The Final Girl (2014)

The establishing shot in the woods shows the isolated location. The trees suggest the location being outside. It's dark and misty showing viewers something will happen at night. The props used such as axes and baseball bats show the different weapons being used to kill or harm people. The weapons allows the audience to see that a dangerous game is being played and someone's going to hurt.

One point in the trailer, the girl is laying on the ground in high key lighting whereas the boys are in low key lighting and can't be shown. The contrast of white vs black could demonstrate the characters who are innocent in comparison to those who are evil. Superimposition is used with words popping up as a background to the plot. Words like 'terrified' 'hopeless' and 'hunted' evoke emotions from the audience as they would feel sympathetic towards the victim. The words don't promote a positive storyline so it's easy to tell the genre. The girl is also wearing red lipstick and a red dress. The colour red symbolises danger which could show the danger awaiting her, the colour red emits sensuality so may be the reason why so many boys are drawn to her, the colour red stands out the most.

New Horror Film Releases Of 2014 And What's Already In The Industry

 

























The Quiet Ones - August 2014
Annabelle - October 2014
    Devils Due - January 2014
    As Above So Below - August 2014
    Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones - January 2014
    The Babadook - October 2014
    Dracula Untold - October 2014
    Oculus - June 2014
    Jessabelle - November 2014
    Ouija - October 2014

The horror films listed were the most publicised and promoted movies in 2014. Trailers for these movies were shown on TV, Youtube adverts and even on twitter. Throughout the year it appears that horror movies are mainly shown at either the beginning of the year, in the summer and coming towards the end of the year. This may be purposefully done in the horror industry, especially for all the horror films released in October which is the lead up to Halloween to make the horror films appear more scary. The main sub genre of horror shown from these movies appears to be the supernatural one. 2014 for horror movies seems to be related to supernatural rather than slashers or any of the other sub genres. The movie industry has decided to make majority supernatural movies this year which may be because feedback from audience has shown that they find supernatural horrors the most frightening.
I've researched some movies from 2013 and similarly majority of the horrors from 2013 such as: Contracted, The Last Exorcism Part 2, Devils Pass, Nothing Left To Fear, The Haunting In Connecticut 2, Insidious Chapter 2, The Conjuring and Mama are all supernatural horrors. Horror movies in 2012 seemed to be dominated by slashers or vampire movies so the past two years it looks as if the movie industry wanted to make a change and switch to predominately supernatural horrors films.

Research Into Horror Trailers - The Caller (2011)

In 'The Caller' trailer, a lot of dark lighting is used which makes it more effective as it's easier for things to pop up and scare an audience. The titles that appear throughout the trailer are in the colour red which connotes danger and is the colour of blood. The first image shown in the trailer was a telephone which links in with the title of the film. This gives an indication to the audience that from the title and the phone being the first thing we see, that the phone will play an important role in the movie. In the trailer an iconography that was used were weapons, knives were seen. In horror films the villain typically tends to be a male but in this trailer it seems as though the villain is a woman which subverts from the typical villain in a horror.

I've made a collage of pictures from the trailer that stood out to me and made me think this made a good trailer. The first image was a 1 second clip of a girl with blood running down her eyes, when the main girl was sleeping on the train. The image is effective as it was barely seen in the trailer and came in a flash sequence. She's crying blood which already presents a messed up situation arising in the trailer. She looks scared and this makes the audience question who this girl is and what her role in the movie is. Iconography used such as blood is shown which is a key element of the horror genre. In the second image on the top row, the main character is digging up something and its set in the night time. Night time settings is a typical convention shown in horror films as it's more scary. The image below shows scars on her body which leaves the question to the audience about what has happened to her. The image below that shows a finger in a jar, this illustrates something bad has happened to someone in the movie as body parts are being removed. The last image at the bottom shows the main character being attacked by a big weapon, this was effective in showing the main girl is being attacked by an unknown assailant. 

The movie poster I have incorporated in the collage. The title has a red shadow on it which looks quite ghostly and could give off a supernatural feel of the movie. The colour red is representative of the colour of blood and may be a warning that danger is present in the movie. The slogan 'some calls are best left unanswered' illustrates a phone call will lead to something with bad consequences. The line makes the audience want to know what was said on this phone call. A hand is coming out of the wall, the identity of this person is unknown and it's near the phone which could show a link between the phone and the person who is calling. The brick walls have blood around it which shows that maybe inside the wall there are dead bodies or its the scene where people have died. It's a very ambiguous movie poster as there are a lot of questions that could be asked about it.