Slasher Film Poster Overview

These 6 film posters have been successfully designed to promote films within

the Slasher sub-genre. Each of the six film posters features typical film poster

conventions. They each have similar stylistic features, similar layout and similar

content. They are each film posters for a Slasher film so are produced with the

intention of attracting an audience of Slasher fans and making them want to go

out and watch the film. By comparing these posters, I will be likely to identify

shared features and patterns used by all horror film posters and Slasher

posters specifically. Equally, I will be able to recognise what make them

effective and what allows the audience to instantly recognise that a Slasher

horror is being promoted.

Each of these posters follows the conventional layout of a film poster and

features key general conventions. There are expected features of a main image

that dominates and fills the entire frame, combined with a tagline that anchors

the image and gives the audience a hint as to what the narrative entails and

horrific imagery. On each poster, the title of the film is the largest text in the

frame. It is in a central position at the bottom of the frame, sitting beneath the

main image. This is to ensure that the film title is the last thing the audience

sees, so it will more than likely stick in their minds. This is an effective use of

layout, as it will ensure that the audience is hooked in by the main image and

the rest of the poster, before the title is revealed. It is vital that the audience

see the film title last as it is the most important feature on the poster; if they

don’t remember the name this could prevent them from going to see the film

and encouraging others to do so. In all six of the posters, the text used for the

title is in upper case in a bold and simple font that is highly visible. The text is

simple yet effective to allow the audience to focus more on and be drawn in by

the image. All of the posters use a display font and in four of the posters this is

in a serif style. This makes the font simple and easy to read and effective. Each

of the posters, except Nightmare on Elm Street, features a tagline that helps to

anchor or reinforce the image. One of the reasons that a Nightmare on Elm

Street doesn’t is due to the fact that it is a classic. The poster is filled by

Freddie Crougar, who Slasher fans would instantly recognise; Freddie alone is

enough and so the image doesn’t need to be reinforced. Also, this is a teaser

poster as it has a lack of institutional information on the bottom. Teaser

posters tend to have limited text and feature largely an image and a title. This

reinforces the idea of Freddie Crougar being enough to promote the film. On

the Friday the 13th and Halloween posters the slogan is placed at the top of the

frame, a fairly common position for the tagline. The tagline for Friday the 13 th

is “Welcome to Crystal Lake”. This gives the audience an insight into the

location of the film and the narrative as it implies that the film will surround a

group of characters who go to Crystal Lake and the audience will guess that,

once there, they will be tormented by the antagonist in the image. Also the use

of the word ‘welcome’ is ironic, of course, as the treatment they encounter

once there will be anything but warm and welcoming. The other three posters

feature the tagline underneath the title. This helps to complete the poster as it

would be the very last thing the audience read and will leave the audience with

a lingering sense of what is to come when they see the film. This choice of

layout works better from a logistical viewpoint too; as the tagline would be

covering key parts of the image if it were to be placed at the top. 5 of the 6

posters feature institutional information that is positioned at the base of the

poster.

We see other repeated patterns through the use of image. In each of the

posters, the image focuses around a main male character, who we can

instantly tell is the antagonist. Each antagonist in the main image is wearing a

mask. This is a well-known convention of the slasher sub-genre as the killer is

nearly always masked to increase the suspense about his true identity and to

horrify his victim, as well as the audience, of course. The Mise-en-scene used

instantly tells us that this poster belongs to the slasher sub-genre. As well as

the mask, the antagonist’s costume features some form of overalls and he is

holding his signature weapon. For example, in the My Bloody Valentine poster,

the antagonist is wear a gas mask and overalls holding a pitch-axe. This is Mise-

en-scene typical of the Slasher sub-genre as in every slasher film the antagonist

uses a weapon that will cause a long and painful death with the most blood

and gore possible. There is a clear pattern in these slasher posters of placing

the weapon in a prominent position to draw the audience’s attention to it and

give them an insight into how the victims will be killed. For example, in the

Texas Chainsaw poster, our eyes are instantly drawn to the chainsaw that

holds a central position in the frame and is presented at a low angle to

maximise its size. The reason for this may be that slasher fans would be drawn

in by the knowledge that if the film is centred on a gruesome weapon such as a

chainsaw, the film will be bloody and gory in the extreme.

There is a consistent pattern in the colours schemes used in each of the six

posters with only slight differences between them. Black, red, white and grey

appear to be the dominant colours across each poster, except Halloween

where orange, the signature colour of the Halloween season, dominates. The

combination of black and red signify death and blood. It allows the audience to

instantly recognise the poster as a Slasher poster as the use of red reflects the

large scale of blood and gore that would feature in a Slasher film. Whereas,

with supernatural posters, pale cold colours are used to signal a chilling mood

and to reflect the arrival of a sinister spirit will draw all life, colour and hope

from the characters’ lives. A pattern I have recognised is with the posters that

emphasise the weapon such as My Bloody Valentine, Texas Chainsaw and

Friday the 13th, the poster is mainly dominated by dark colours such as grey

and black with a hint of red. Here, using dark colours allows the audience’s

attention to focus on the weapon, as it shimmers through the darkness.

Further to this, low angle shots are utilised to emphasise the weapon rather

than the antagonist himself. The posters for Halloween and Hatchet, on the

other hand, use the colour scheme to emphasise the background, with orange

and red being the dominating colours. This may be due to the fact that by

emphasising the background, the audience’s focus is on the antagonist. It also

allows the audience to focus on the body shape of the antagonist. The bright

background creates a silhouette around his body and shows the audience how

intimidating he is and to reflect how these human beings are dark through and

through. This is emphasised through the use of a medium long shot to show

the entire antagonist.

All of the posters in the selection are effective in drawing in the audience and

promoting the film. Each of the posters follow the same principle of less is

more by letting the image, the colours and the text do the talking. Key

iconography, meanwhile, is introduced successfully in all posters to attract the

typical fan of slasher horror.