Textual Analysis of 'The Strangers' Film Trailer
From the very instance we are drawn into the movie trailer of ‘The Strangers’, we immediately sense a feeling of fear with the constant use of low-key lighting and with that we know it’s a horror movie trailer. Continuing with the constant use of low-key lighting, we signify this with a horror movie as a majority of horror movies contain low-key lighting to maintain the suspense.
The opening of the movie shows an old rusty, dirty, alienated one story home. Champagne, rose petals, candlelight, and engagement ring. This night was supposed to be a night of celebration for Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman), but not soon after returning to the family vacation home, everything had collapsed for the happy couple. The movie starts off as joyous and happy with the two main characters living a normal, non-disturbed lifestyle but is soon intruded by three strangers at 4 am.
The movie has begun happily with the two main characters living a normal, non disturbed lifestyle. After the man brings out the box which we instantaneously indicate as being a sign of marriage proposal, the couple are accompanied with three mysterious and anonymous strangers. The way the scenes of the horror movie trailer are placed out shows parts of what happens scene after scene without giving away too much, by doing this the audience instantly speculate what occurs between the cuts which creates mystery and leaves the viewer with a desire to see the rest of the movie.
Just from the first few minutes of the movie we know the movie will be based around the old rusty alienated house shown, we also suspect it’s going to be another one of those horror movies where they’re in the middle of no-where judging from the spacious grounds around them. The style of the house also lets us know where they could be located as the house is mainly made of wood and within the home there are several animal stuffing’s hung on the wall which could be a sign of them living in the woods.
Although there are actually five characters in this movie, there is only two that are revealed to us as the other three are masked. The first scene we see is off the man setting up a romantic atmosphere for his girlfriend, this denotes that he is a romantic man. The woman is shown to be a girly girl as she wears a dress and likes to have baths, later on she changes into more comfortable, less feminine clothing, this shows that she is laidback. The reason to have the man create a romantic atmosphere for the woman shows that he wants to commit to her (shown by the engagement ring) and that he is there to protect her when she is in danger as he says to her ‘you are my girl’, he is also shown as brave and is the one who goes out to check what’s going on while the lady waits behind. The lady is represented to be quite useless and hides behind the man to protect her, this is the stereotype of most women in horror movies as they are usually portrayed as hopeless so the male can ‘save the day’.
There is no voice over, using no voice over makes the trailer seem more real as if there were to be a voice over, it would seem like the story has already happened and is being retold by someone else. Instead of having a voice over, this trailer includes onscreen captions. The on-screen captions consist of ‘Inspired by true events’: this definitely makes the movie seem more like reality and by putting ‘inspired by true events’, it makes the audience afraid that the same thing may/could happen to them. ‘We always tell ourselves there’s nothing to fear… but sometimes we’re wrong’ makes the audience think that something is about to happen and it will be something to be afraid of, it also makes the audience wonder what’s going to happen to the characters of this movie.
The pacing of this film trailer changes throughout the scenes of what happens after one another, first the trailer starts off as slow with the romantic scenes and the slow piano music, the music then starts to speed up after the two main characters have discovered that someone is intruding in their privacy. The increasing speed of the pace of images and sound could indicate that they need to run for their lives as danger is approaching.
The trailer includes a lot of fast cuts after the intruders are introduced to the scene. The fast cuts speed up the trailer as it makes it more terrifying and makes it seem as the characters are running for their lives. The sound inserted into the trailer starts off with slow and calm piano keys, it then slightly starts to get faster, we then hear a diegetic sound of a broken record which could signify that the things happening to them could have happened to other people and is therefore repeated, underneath the sound of the broken record we are introduced to a very high pitched non-diegetic noise which indicates something sinister is about to happen.
Most of the camera works in the trailer are long shots; long shots are used in the trailer to show the empty surroundings and the decorations of the location inside the house. A lot of medium close ups are also used to show the reaction and expressions of the character, the only time we see close ups are when the couple are embracing which shows how close they are and how much they really love each other.
The trailer started by giving the viewer a neutral feeling, this is used so the viewer can be drawn into watching to movie until the end. The end of the movie we know that something is going to happen and it may not end well. It was well edited as the pace of the trailer made it more and more intense as the viewer watched on, this makes it into a horror movie trailer.
The film studio distributing this movie is Rogue Pictures (co-production with Intrepid Pictures). As well as having released movies with a comedy genre, Rogue Pictures is also known to release horror movies, ‘White Noise – The Light’ was released before ‘The Strangers’, and after the strangers came many other known horror movies including ‘The Unborn’, ‘The Last House On The Left’, and ‘My Soul To Take’. With the amount of horror movies being distributed by Rogue Pictures, it shows they have an interest in making horror movies which is why it is a good film studio to distribute ‘The Strangers’.
This film trailer is played before the actual movie so that it can give the viewers an insight on what the film is going to be about and to interest them in watching it as they will already know a little of what it’s about. The trailer doesn’t necessarily tell you what the entire movie is about but it gives you an insight with a little information so you’ll develop an interest to go watch it. Just by showing you little parts of the movie, it tempts you to want to watch the rest of the movie.
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