Research: Horror Poster ( The Amityville Horror)

Horror posters such as this one almost instantly suggest to the audience that this movie is a horror based on what we can see. I think that what stands out most in this poster is the house which is shot in a very foreboding and powerful way. The house is made to look quite disturbing and is definitely the main point of focus in this poster. In front of the house is a man with a shotgun who appears to be hunching over, perhaps in a crazed state of mind. Judging from the way the house and the character is shot it could be suggested that the house has dominance of the man and is forcing him to do acts which are against his own will. The colour of the top half of the poster is faded out with every little colour, further suggesting to the audience this poster is advertising a horror film as it gives an impression that you are closed in or trapped and creates a sense of hopelessness.

Underneath the character the title of the film is displayed in capital letters and in Red. The colour Red is widely assosiated in horror as it can connote many things such as evil, blood, anger. Underneath that it says "Based On A True Story". This will get the audience nervous or tense because knowing that a horror film is based on real life can often scare the viewer quite easily into thinking the same thing could happen to them. On the left on the poster there seems to be be an engraving which says "Katch Em & Kill Em". This possibly would have been written by the man seen in the poster further suggesting that he has gone insane.

From the above, it can be concluded that this films target audience is probably an adult male audience as this poster is obviously not aimed at younger audiences due to its haunting nature.

Horror Poster (The Exorist)

The Exorcist

Budget: $12,000,000

Gross revenue $513,453,006

When looking at this poster the first thing that captures your attention is the image of the man in the centre standing in the darkness and looking into the window of the house and is illuminated by the strong light beaming from the window. The next thing that would draw you in is the text at the top of the poster which says " The Scariest Movie Of All Time Has In A Version You've Never Seen ". The words " Version Never Seen" are underlined, the effect of this is to create a feeling of curiosity and perhaps fear in the audience as this has been dubbed the scariest movie ever and a version never seen before has been released. This almost challenges the viewer to watch the movie.

You will also notice that the poster is almost totally bathed in darkness, the only light source coming from the street lamp and the windows. This is a typcial trait of a horror poster as it reninforces a foreboding and atmospheric atmosphere as if darkness itself is closing in around. Darnkess or the colour Black is associated with evil, power and suspense, this is because there is a fear people suffer related with darkness as we do not know what is lurking within the shadows of the night and this can relate to tha audience on a personal level.

The title of the film is The Exorist, this straight away tells the audience this film may be to do with demons or evil; that combined with the tagline suggests this film is most likely an 18 however, at the bottom left there is an american certification used and they have rated this film R (restricted) which would be an 18 in the UK.

Due to this being named the scariest film of all time I would say this film would be directed predominantly at a male audience. Exorcisms and demons would assosciate with a male audience as it would challenge them to watch the film as this makes them feel dominant over the women audience and to say that they arent scared to watch the film.