Analysis of existing poster: ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’

Analysis of existing poster: ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’

The 2010 release of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ launched horror movies back into fashion. With the largely anticipated return of Freddy Kruger, this film had quite a buzz raised around it.

Freddy Kruger, the main object in this poster, is a fictional character that stalks people’s dreams and can make a nightmare, a reality. He uses a glove armed with sharp razor blades to kill his victims.

The setting of this poster appears that a man; Freddy Kruger is in a room, a very dimly lit room with only a single light behind his head. He is wearing a large hat, almost like a top hat and is dressed in the recognisable red and green striped jumper. One thing that is striking about this poster, is that, the poster doesn’t say his name, but to the horror niche, his stance is very recognisable. From the way he stands to the light bouncing off his roughly textured skin, people familiar with the old ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ movies, with quickly be able to recognise who he is.

The medium close-up shot of Freddy is enough to show us what he is wearing and his costume is a crucial part of this film as this is all you ever see him wear throughout the movie.

The poster in general is a very dark and chilling one. From the room in which Freddy is standing in, to the smirk on his roughly-textured face. The appearance of Freddy and the darkness and coldness you almost feel as you look at this poster, depicts a harsh and scary atmosphere. One that almost makes you feel uncomfortable.
Freddy’s eyes are not visible in the poster as his brown/tanned fedora is covering his eyes. Although the eyes are one of the features that let you determine ones emotions, you can straight away tell by the smirk on Freddy’s face, that his eyes would be narrowed in an evil glare.
Freddy’s hands are folded over and you can see the highly recognisable gloves with the blades on the end. One finger in particular is sticking out of the clasp and this shows his weapon of choice; his blade. There is a reflection of light coming off his finger, this was most probably done to show the sharpness of his blade and also, to make you aware that it is there.

Freddy’s jumper is an iconic piece of costume and is probably one of the most recognised costumes in the history of horror films. In the old version of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’, Freddy wore the same red and dark green jumper. In this re-release of the old horror film, the jumper is the same but looks more worn out and has strings pulled. You can also see this in the poser, if you look closely at the sleeve area of Freddy’s jumper.
The red font connotes blood and gore which is very familiar to films in which have Freddy Kruger in them. The font type looks almost skeletal and has a chilling sense to it. The word “NIGHTMARE” is written bigger than the rest of the words probably because it is the main feature of the film and the theme of the film is being trapped in a nightmare. The little caption for the movie reads “WELCOME TO YOUR NEW NIGHTMARE”. By this being written in white, could be so that it is visible as the poster is very dark. It also makes it stand out, but not more than the title of the movie.

I thought the use of the word “New” makes things more interesting, since the old version of this film was released in 1984, meaning mostly people born in the early 70’s would have watched this film. Due to the re-release, it opens up another audience criterion for people born later than the 1990’s.
This movie appeals more to teenagers than to adults since the main characters are teenagers and I feel that the re-release will fetch a more broad audience since technology has changed.