Textual Analysis Of Insidious Trailer

I am going to be analysing a horror-film trailer. I will be looking at many things such as the:
Iconography
Mise en scene
Editing
Camera Angle (and positioning)
Lighting etc.

I will be looking at how all of these contribute to the typical conventions of a horror movie and what the audience expect to see.

The film i will be analysing is contemporary horror film produced in 2011 directed by James Wan called Insidious. The storyline deals with a child being haunted by a demon. The family believe it is the house but in actual fact it is the child. While the child is sleeping his soul is able to escape from his body into a different world or dimension in which demons and dead people stay. This gives demons the opportunity to posses the child's body and cause pandemonium on Earth killing people. The longer the child is asleep the easier it becomes for the demons to inhabit his body.





MISE EN SCENE
In terms of the mise en scene, this covers many aspects that a conventional horror film will include such as the props, costume, location, people etc. The trailer consists of a typical location, a middle class house in a nice, respectable, quiet neighbourhood occupied by a regular loving family. This is juxtaposed by the house being inhabited by a demon. The use of beds, windows, chairs and hospital equipment are used throughout the trailer. The windows and beds are used to create fear for when the demons presence is about. The windows, beds and doors slam to provoke fear and a "jumpy" and "creepy" scene to the audience. The bed is a key prop as this aids the plot of the film, in order for the demon to get into the mortal realm, he must pass via the child's body when he is sleeping. This has many connotations as beds are recognised to be a place of rest, peace, safety and comfort but in this film it represents the bed as being the complete opposite. Hospital equipment is used to represent death and pain as the parents believed he was in a coma due to an unknown cause after being perfectly healthy the day before.

Other props that aid the representation of childhood are things such as toys, baby monitors and a rocking horse. These things can be modified to the advantage of a horror genre. Toys and baby monitors can show a ghostly/evil presence by getting them to move or be played with or a voice played through the baby monitor. This is very powerful in provoking the audiences emotions. To keep your children safe is a parental instinct, so to hear a supernatural voice coming through the speakers where the baby should be, can be terrifying. A rocking horse is used in many films as it is an object that many can relate to in their own childhood, this is commonly used to show a ghostly presence as it rocks back and forth.

CAMERA
There is a vast variety of camera shots used in the trailer of Insidious. They all are used to build pace and tension as well as represent a certain thing such as a close up of the metronome of which is used in the film to hynotize the father. There is an eye-line medium closeup of the distressed father which is a very powerful shot as it shows the characters facial expressions and emotions aswell as giving the affect that he is looking straight at you. It is also very affective as it opposes stereotypes that stereotypically males are supposed to be stong and protective but here he is clearly vulnerable and distressed.

There is a montage of shots when the child is in hospital. It begins with a close up of the distressed couple and then changes to an over-the-shoulder long shot of the child in the hospital bed. A hospital has connotations of death, pain and illness so seeing the couples gaze at their injured child can actually cause other people to emphasise with them as a parental instinct. There is an eye-line pan when the mother is investigating the rooms as she senses a presence, the camera angle is from her perspective and the pan represents her head movement as she gazes at one room and then to another. This creates suspense as the audience can only see what the character is seeing so it puts you in her perspective that creates a creepy tension.

There are many fast shots of extreme close ups later on in the trailer to show the characters terrified facial expressions and also some of the costumes and make up of the demons but the extreme close up as a very fast cut only leaves the viewer with a mental image of the demon actually looks like and this can vary on each viewers perception which then influences social interaction.

Encoding/Decoding
The studio logos publicise the companies that produce the film and in terms of the target audience they may recognise they studios from similar films they have seen in the past. For example the creators of Insidious also made contemporary popular horror films such as Saw and Paranormal Activity.
The gratifications offered are entertainment as it gets them scared or provokes an emotion and social interaction as it can come up in a transactional social conversation between friends.

Dyers Utopian theory applies to this trailer as viewers would gain energy and solution from the trailer/film that they may not obtain from their usual day to day lifestyle. Horror appeals to people by provoking certain emotions through the use of macabre, jumpy scenes or gruesome content. Dyers theory offers usually a young audience "solutions" and "energy" that they may lack in their day-to-day lifestyle, a viewer suffering from exhaustion may be revitalised through the special affects, quick cuts, costume, graphics or "creepy" story line. It gives them a sense of escapism from reality.

In terms of Maslows Hierarchy Of Needs this film trailer offers 3 of the key themes promoted by the theory. The theme of "safety" isn't offered, but slightly juxtaposed, it may be taken away by the intelligent storyline of which provokes the emotion of fear and adrenaline with the twisted plot. The theme of affiliation is offered as the viewer feels like they aren't the only individual that is feeling this emotion, its reassuring to know that everyone is witnessing the same thing. Lastly the sense of esteem, this may just be from the feeling of knowing "its just a film" and that you can return to safety and reality after.

Representation of groups can be shown by the social grouping theory according to age, gender and location. In the trailer it deals with a very ordinary middle classed family. Age is represented by children's toys such as the rocking horse as well as baby monitors and cots (children's beds). Gender deals with contemporary stereotypes of males to be slightly more stronger and for females to be protective and nurturing.

Editing

In the opening scene the cuts start off slowly cutting from firstly the film studio (Film District) to the fathers distressed face and then to the metronome. From here the cuts then become rapid showing many things such as locations, costumes, character expressions, make-up of demons etc. In the first 31seconds of the trailer there is 18cuts showing many important scenes of the film. It introduces the location, the characters, the demons etc. Throughout the trailer is cuts from the film to the insidious logo that continuously flashes and cross dissolves. The words "Insidious is" cross fades and changes place for example, "Insidious is...Is Insidious". This is a powerful technique as not only is the film title ambiguous they have adapted the definition of Insidious to link to the definition of the film.

The definition of Insidious is: "proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, causing harmful affects". As the words cross dissolves into each other its says Insidious is Insidious representing the film to start in a subtle way but gradually will enhance the feeling of fear.

There is many diegetic sounds throughout the trailer such as loud collisions, screaming, slamming of doors etc, but there is a diegetic sound of which transitions into a non-diegetic sound and plays throughout the trailer. There is a medium shot of a metronome of which is used to hypnotise the father, the onomatopoeic sound of the "tick tock" then plays throughout the trailer, this creates an image that "time is limited" as sound mimics the sound a clock.

Film trailers consist of many, rapid cuts from scene to scene showing the mise-en-scene of this film.

Graphics of which is enhanced by costume and make-up is also a type of editing, to create a demons presence graphics, or CGI (computer generated images) are often used. In this trailer there is a quick shot of the demon floating.

Genre

This film trailer is certainly a horror film as it has all the typical conventions that the audience would expect. Horror films can then be categorised into sub-genres, this film deals with demons, spirits, and a sci-fi parallel universe so it has many sub genres such as religious due to the devil/demons but as it has a science fiction input it is very hard to categorise this film as it deals with many sub genres.