How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary

texts?

In my poster, I had to try and focus on the main features of a horror poster and stick to that style. After researching different posters and looking at what made them effective, I noticed the 'slasher' posters had some aspect of gore about them. Because our trailer contains a monster who kills his victims in a barbaric fashion, I needed to include gore which I have reflected with red font in a colour that looks like blood. I wanted the main villain on the poster, but wanted him to appear as a seemingly passive but mutual threat, so to reflect his darker nature I used a shadow to cover half of his face, I achieved this through use of low key lighting during the photo shoot. This is also used for the Ed Gein (2000) poster which is half covered by a flesh like mask and his face. I also wanted to stay true to a gothic style theme, which ties in well with the setting and nature of the trailer. For this I chose a text which is similar in style to classic gothic calligraphy, this is also evident on the poster for Nosferatu(1922). Also on the poster for Nosferatu uses dark shadows to connote the genre of the movie, I have used this on my poster and made the Priest stand out more in contrast to the mist behind him.

A common convention of the horror genre is a spooky background as seen in the poster for Silent Hill (2006). It contains a misty version of the town and uses the setting of the movie to create a sense of fear, I have chosen to replicate this through use of the mist both in front and behind the central monster of the film. I have used the technique of pathetic fallacy to not only add a sense of ambiance to the poster but also add a sense of mystery and fear to our Priest. This is also used to help connote the emotion of the film to its audiences and show what kind of film it is through the use of creepy imagery, similarly to how Hitchcock used rain in the car driving sequence from PSYCHO(1960) to connote the character's feelings in the film.

My magazine has connotations of most horror magazines due to my thorough research of what makes a good horror magazine. The titles of my magazine and a professional one both have a title that has horror connotations, massacre which refers to movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Scream (1996) which were both popular horror movies. The colour palettes of both magazines have dark colours and both include red in them somewhere, red being a connotation of blood which is reoccurring in the horror genre. I have used the presence of blood both in the font colours and I have added a smeared blood effect to the film reels that act as a border.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWm_mkbdpCA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs3981DoINw

The SCREAM magazine/fanzine also has something similar; it uses picture frames as a border. The main cover image for both magazines is someone who has particularly menacing feel to them; the females on the SCREAM cover are wielding weapons, whilst the Priest from my magazine is looking intensely at the audiences. The other images on the SCREAM magazine cover are either icon horror characters or have something to do with the horror genre, for example the Xenomorph in the top left, or Rob Zombie in the middle. I replicated this effect on my magazine by using images that were disturbing such as the patient having their eye gouged out, and the Zombie doctors in the bottom of the film strip. The wording and phrasing used on both magazines is also interesting because SCREAM uses the term ‘Aliens’ which are a common subject of science fiction horrors, whereas I have also done this but in a different way. I chose to use phrases such as ‘DIE’ and ‘FEAR’ to help connote the genre of the magazine and appeal to my target audiences.

The intention of my advertising campaign for the end result which would have been a movie called Priest. The key selling point that we went for was the use of an iconic character that we could try and incorporate onto our poster, magazine and trailer. We decided that by using an iconic horror character, we could effectively sell the movie and the magazine by using the villain; Father Crowthorne. This same tactic is used in popular franchises such as Friday the 13th, HALLOWEEN, and Hellraiser. By using the iconic character we would then have potential to bring them back for sequels and other products. This same effect would be reminiscent of the characters Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Pinhead (Hellraiser) who have been seen as iconic horror villains in movie history. We are aiming for the same types of audiences as SCREAM magazine which aims for fanatical fans of body horror films and ideas that aren’t directly associated with the current CDI.