Inspirational Text- Horror Film Posters

Freddy vs Jason film poster
Denotations: In this film poster the background is of low key lighting, making the two images standout with their facial expressions shown from a bright effect and their weapons to be bright shiny. These images fit in with the film title ‘Freddy vs Jason’, which indicates that these two characters are rivals and are going to use each of their weapons on each other at one point of this film. However, the weapons in the poster are significant because of your eyes been drawn to them, which leads you to believe that in the narrative there will be blood, damage and death in this film, stating that the genre is horror. The film title is centred in the poster to show the tension between the two characters, the font is red with a creepy style used to showcase the horror genre, which doesn’t give much away about this film but catches the target audience’s attention and thoughts. At the bottom of the poster in a small font there is a release date of this film; shiny white font and also a web link; red font, this information is still important with the contrast of colours standing out from the background, which brings your eyes towards.

Connotations: This film poster gives away the key plot in the films narrative with the title been ‘Freddy vs Jason’ and two characters looking serious at each other’s face clinching weapons in each other’s hands. This shows that there will be a lot of conflict between these two characters. There are only two characters shown in this poster which leads you to believe that there are only two starring roles and an expectation that there will be a lot of film time on them.

Semiotics: In this film poster the two characters are the symbol, showing their authority from their serious facial expressions, which senses a fright factor between these characters and the target audience. The signs for the film are the weapons what these characters are clinching, which indicates that the events that are going to happen these weapons are going to conflict pain on each other.


Overall from analyzing this horror film poster I have picked out certain techniques, which I will take into consideration when creating my own poster for my film. E.g. lighting- dark/low key lighting directs to horror genre, main character or subject shown dominantly and to keep poster simple only including main features like title, information and images. These techniques have previously been shown to be successful from gaining target audiences attention through simple and eye catching posters not giving too much away about the films narrative apart from the genre of horror and a main characters or subject.

Hatchet film poster                        
Denotations: In this film poster actors are not been shown. However a dominant image of a hatchet is on this horror film poster, which indicates this hatchet to have a significant importance towards the film. The location is hard to figure out with the background having low key lighting with back lighting on the middle of the hatchet to bring your eye line towards the image, which you can see has blood on it. The film title is easily seen at the bottom of the hatchet handle which increases the importance of this image with the film title been called Hatchet. The font of the writing is high key, which is bright white because of the background been low key; the title stands out indicating that the 'Hatchet' is the main feature of this poster. There is a sell line at the top of the poster which gains your interest to find out what this film narrative actually is because of the poster not giving away too much information. Credits are also shown on this poster at the bottom in a smaller font: director, actors and website link.

Connotations: This film poster does not give away much about the narrative of the film but it indicates that a hatchet is a key symbol and importance to the film which you would expect this tool to be involved inflecting pain at some point of this film hence the blood on this tool, which relates to damage and pain. The title of this horror film is called Hatchet so the target audience knows that this tool will have some sort film time.

Semiotics: The image of the hatchet is the symbol of this film poster, which dominates most of the page showing high authority. The blood on this hatchet is the sign, which explains the horror genre of this film indicating that this tool is going to conflict damage and pain.   


Overall from analyzing this film poster I have came to the conclusion that for a horror film to be easily highlighted from the target audience that low key lighting sets the scene effectively. On top of that the main attraction of a film poster can be a significant object which is directed towards the film narrative and not just a main character. This poster has opened my eyes to more options when I come round to designing my film poster.