Trailer analysis

Trailer Analysis By: Miriana Younan

The trailer above is promoting ‘Insidious Chapter 2’, a horror film that could be placed within a supernatural or possession sub genre. When watching this horror film the audience can see that the father has been possessed by an evil spirit and turning a family home into a terrifying and unsafe place. I picked this trailer because the music they use within this trailer is effective and really adds the terror to the trailer and also keeps the audience hearts racing.

The film trailer starts with the normal regulatory warning message that all film trailers start with, this message will warn the audience against some of the content which is about to appear giving them the chance not to watch if they wish. The message is has a bright green background and is written in a white font, therefore making it very eye-catching to the audience, making sure they do not avoid or miss the important message. There is no sound whilst this message is being displayed, giving the audience a chance to read it. Straight after the message is displayed, the logo of the film production company that made this film is displayed; this makes the audience aware of who made the film.


The next part of the trailer you see an over the shoulder shot of the family, the dad playing with his son and the mum watching them. Usually you would see the film title first but they go straight into the trailer narrative because this is the second chapter of Insidious so the audience would have seen the first film. While this scene is on you get non- diagetic music over the top of the shot, the music is soft and slow, it gives off the impression of happiness of the family. This is the equilibrium of the film.

After this the trailer fades into a black screen and non-diagetic text appears on screen which is called a strap. The text says “It began two years ago”, this is explaining the narrative of the film. The background is black which hints fear and death and the font is white which creates the contrast, the contrast between good and evil.

With the soft music still playing, the next scene cuts to an establishing shot of the front of the house the location where the family are staying. The audience can see the location is in the suburbs and the house is quite big and doesn’t look as modern as other house you would see. After this scene it cuts into the house and we see the family arriving and the dad saying they will be staying at grandma’s house, we still have the same music playing throughout this scene. This shows the family is happy up until now.


The scene again fades to a black background and we get another strap on screen saying “Their child inherited a gift”, this suggests to the audience that the children could be the ones in trouble. Again black background suggests death and fear and the white font contrasting with the background the fight between good and evil.

The music slowly fades out and you hear diagetic sound which babies lullaby coming from the baby walker. You see a close up of the mother and a long shot of the baby walker, the audience see the baby walker coming into the room on its own with no baby inside it to move it, this suggests that the supernatural evil spirit has come back and this is the start of the disruption. The lullaby creates an innocent object like the baby walker to look horrific and scary to the audience.

As the lullaby slows down you get a long shot of the mother in the living room looking around and as she is walking back a women in a white gown appears. The contrapuntal music the lullaby is contrasting what is happening on the scene. The women in the back wearing white is contrasting again the fight between evil and good as she is evil and she is wearing white. The lullaby stops as the women in white gets up and walks and then you hear a women’s voice coming from the baby monitor singing row row your boat really quietly the camera zooms into the baby monitor and when


it gets closer you get a bang at the door and the shot cuts to the mother running upstairs to her baby. This shows the audience the disruption has started but don’t know what’s going on yet.

The scene cuts to a black background with a hint of white/grey, with white and red writing on the screen. The red text being linked to danger and blood and the white going back to contrasting good and evil. This shot informs the audience that the same film company made the other popular horror films ‘saw’ and ‘paranormal activity’. The audience will recognise the films and will be drawn to watch ‘Insidious 2’. On top of this screen you get a woman singing another children’s lullaby she keeps repeating merrily over and over again she starts quite and gets louder. Once again use of contrapuntal sound to add tension to the trailer even more. After this shot the editing speeds up to add tension.

On this shot you can still hear the women saying ‘merrily’ over and over again and you get more non-diagetic sounds add on top of that you hear someone breathing slowly the breathing fades in and out this causes more tension and fear to the audience as the music gets more intensified. On this shot you really a warning alarm sound on top of the breathing and the women singing, the warning alarm as been slowed down this suggests to the audience the family is in terrible and the audience should be terrified as there is more horror coming up in the trailer. In this shot you get a long shot of family and ..... trying to get answer for why the women is haunting the family. In the mise-en-scene you see a lot of candles symbolising light in the darkness the family is looking for hope. You also see lots of red and black colours in the mise-en-scene, the red suggests danger and blood within this scene and black the darkness and how the family is lost.


Now we are getting a fast montage of quick cuts and the music playing alongside these cuts is a woman saying some sort of words which you can’t really tell what she is saying and on top of that you hear a non-diagetic sound that sounds like evacuation sound, this suggests to the audience that you need to get out here quick and danger lurks there. Now the edits are at a very fast paced to create that tension and adrenaline with the audience. The audience are seeing horrific imagery with the dead corpses and with the women’s face as she pops up on the screen to create that jumpy moment gets the audience jumping out their sits. For the straps the same background is used all the time even for the title and the release date, the straps are telling the audience that there is a secret which gets the audience asking questions which will make them want to find out the secret. Right at the end when you see the title of the film, the non-diagetic sound stops and you only hear the


women again and then you get a sting when the release date appears this scares the audience as the sound that accompanies the shot is extremely loud, the audience think is all over then they see the title and they relax but then you get the sting which catches them out and also as the release date is Friday the 13th, this scares the audience even more as they believe that day is bad luck so the date becomes more memorisable as it is the last thing they see and it is Friday the 13th.

Overall, I think this trailer is successful with luring the audience in as it uses great straps to get the audience thinking what this film is about what is the secret and what does this evil spirit want from the family. You need to make the audience think about the film and this trailer does, it doesn’t give too much away but it shows enough to lure the audiences to watch the film. This trailer inspires me as the music and sounds it uses is great and really gets my heart racing and creates a lots of fear and tension. From this trailer I will consider using the same effects that they have applied as it will create a successful trailer.

Trailer analysis

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