Horror movie poster analysis

‘The Exorcist’ film poster. The Exorcist is a very popular film and this poster could be the reason why, I think it is very effective and portrays the film very well. First of all, the colour scheme is unusual but the bright writing shows up a lot against the dark background image. The dark image shows a sense of mystery because you can’t make out any faces just a silhouette of a man who looks to be a detective maybe with the way he is dressed and carrying a briefcase. The mysterious side of this poster intrigues the audience because it does not look like a typical horror film poster and could be more of a sinister horror than a slasher horror. The yellow lighting of the image gives it some colour and lights up the main parts of the image - the man and the house. We see the light is coming from inside the house and suggests the evil is inside the house which he is heading to which could make the audience think he is going to be confronted by this mysterious ‘light’. The light from the window also outshines the outside lamp and which is not normal and leaves the audience wanting to know what this light is. Overall, it is a very effective film poster and the colour scheme works well, however it looks more like a mystery film than a horror film.

‘The Shining’ film poster:

The Shining poster clearly portrays the film and clearly shows the villain and the victim. Having someone look quite psycho on a poster intrigues an audience because they want to see what he does and why he’s going after this woman who looks so terrified even when holding a weapon to defend herself. If some of the audience have watched the film, they would look at this poster and can ‘hear’ the image as this part of the film the man says “Here’s Johnny” and is a very well known part of the film. This makes the poster very effective as the audience can link the image to the film of a funny and memorable part of the film. The line at the top ‘The tide of terror that swept America IS HERE’ also intrigues an audience because saying that it ‘swept America’ suggests that it is a very good film and America loved it so people will want to watch it and see what it’s all about. They also say it’s a ‘tide of terror’ portraying that the film is terrifying and that’s what people think horror movies are all about and they want to be scared.