As part of our task for media, it is essential for us to analyse movie posters in order to understand how they build hype and entice the audience through conventions used. The poster above is the one used the 2010 remake of the popular horror movie franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street, featuring it’s main antagonist Freddy Krueger.
In the poster, we see a medium close-up of Freddy Krueger, who is clutching his hands and bowing his head which allows his hat to cover half his face. Props used in the poster including Freddy’s hat, his jumper, and his claw, along with make up for his burnt face. There is a great amount of low-key lighting, along with a bright light shining from the background, which helps create an outline around Freddy. There are clearly other sources of light that help illuminate his hands and areas of his face.
The connotations of this poster bare much deeper meaning. One area of mis-en-scene used in the poster that is testament to this is the lighting. As mentioned before, the poster is dominated by low-key lighting, and this gives a depressing, murky mood. This coupled with Freddy bowing his head, allowing his hat to cover his face, builds a great deal of mystery, which gets the audience wondering what he is capable of. There is a bright white light shining from behind, and usually a white light is a sign of hope and peace. And this case however, it could connote a coming of death, and it is said that went people die they go towards a bright white light. Freddy being in front of the light may also connote that he is what stops his victims from having peaceful deaths. There is also minor lighting used to illuminate Freddy’s face, jumper, hands and his claw. The iconic claw is illuminated to the point where (whether it be edited or not) it is actually glistening, which suggest the claw being a sharp, clean weapon, wanting to be used. It is helps to make his claw the main focus of the poster.
There is non-verbal communication present in the poster. Freddy is seen clutching his hands, which is a clear indication that he is preparing to attack. It could also be the case that he is not clutching his hands, rather he is guarding his clawing hand, and leaving one of his claws showing, suggesting he is getting ready to fully reveal his weapon. As mentioned before, the white light suggests coming of death, and it further guides the connotations that Freddy is getting ready to kill.
There is a relation between the colour combination used in the poster, which mainly consists of red, black, and brown. The overall image seems to have a dark-brownish kind of filter, which dims any possible vibrancy that may have come from the green stripes on Freddy’s trademark woolly jumper, leaving the shirt looking mainly red. The filter gives the image a dirty, gritty type of look, which works well with the rough, damaged material of the jumper he is wearing and the texture of his hands and his burnt face.
The other colour used in this poster is red. The colour red is, aside from the jumper, used for the text of the movie’s title. The red used in this poster seems to connote danger and blood, and perhaps lust for blood, as we see Freddy exposing his weapon in preparation to attack his victims. The text is of serif font as it’s edges are sharp, which supports the connotations of the red colour used on the text, as the sharpness of the text and the colour mirrors Freddy using his weapons to kill vicitms. The word ‘Nightmare’ in the title of the movie is a much larger size than the other words in the text, emphasising the nature of the film.
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