Ashleigh's Textual Analysis Of A Horror Poster

Textual Analysis of A Horror Poster

SAW 3D

Saw 3D is the last of all the Saw films and is released in October just in time for Halloween, all the saw films are timed very specifically to parallel with Halloween and this helps to create“hype” around the film. The films which are created by Twisted pictures generally control the whole Halloween season and so this helps when dealing with competition and gain a huge lot of attention. Film posters are advertised on billboards, in magazines, on the internet and even in cinemas. The main reason of a poster is to sell the film and to gain interest from the public. Posters are a device to sell a film.

The particular poster that I am looking at could be described as a teaser poster as it doesn’t release any information about the plot or the actors, the only information it gives is the release date and a tagline “The traps come alive in 3d”. As this poster has been released a little while before the film comes out we get a taste of the film by the tagline, the word traps gives us an idea of what could be in the film.

The colours in this poster are mainly white along with red text and are sans serif fonts which create a more modern feeling. Although the poster is quiet plain its effective in making the audience curious as it doesn’t show anything about the film, and so doesn’t give anything away. The text is fairly basic but the small detail of the word “Saw” in different boldness makes it stand out more to the audience. The red text connotes blood and anger and the typical colours used in horror films, and with the focal white colour which creates a sense of space mystery and emptiness in the background it gives a feeling of the blood of the innocent. This poster is effective without an image from the film as the audience for this film will already have seen the other Saw films and be intrigued to see the film already.

This particular poster hasn’t done what most of the Saw posters do, which is illustrates roman numerals, but we could say they “w” in “Saw” has been presented in lines to give us a feel that is connects with all the other posters from the other films.  This poster also hasn’t given us the typical photography that many of the other posters have which gives us a little taster of the film.  Below this is the release date and the tagline which are in smaller font.

The close up of the eye is main image on the page and the camera focuses heavily (harshly) on this. The eye is positioned in the middle of the page, they image has been given a splattered feeling that creates a better affect than just a plain eye. The splattered splodges could be associated with tears and this could mean fear. The image shows an eye that is really focused and we get the feeling the eye is looking right at us. The image connects with the tagline “the traps come alive in real 3D”, especially the word “alive”. Being the last installment of the Saw films they may have choose to make the poster a teaser so that they don’t give anything away, and make people more intrigued to see it. Although there is no pictures the text of the words “Saw” would relate to the fans and they would know what the film is.

This poster informs the audience that the film is coming and doesn’t give anything away to the audience, the poster possibly could have been more persuading if it had a gruesome picture which would have made it look more like a horror poster and intrigued the audience more. Also the age certificate should be present on a poster to inform the audience and maybe anchorage which would have helped to understand the context of the image.