Analysis of a horror film trailer

Click to watch, The Exorcism

The Exorcism is a horror film from the 70's this film was banned from England as it was so scary. Infact people were that scared when watching it that they were fainting and being sick at the cinema. One person even killed themselves after watching this film.

The beginning of the trailer starts in the dark. Non digetic classical music is playing giving it a creepy feel as the tone and pitch of the music is high. The picture remians blank and black for just over 12 seconds. Then we are shown a woman from a low angle and walking with a candle. Because the person is a woman and is shown from a low angle that instantly shows inferiority and vunrabilty.
A voice over then comes onto the trailer whilst the music is still playing faintly in the background. The woman is shown still walking through a creepy looking house when something happens that makes the woman scream and the picture again goes black the voice over has just finished saying 'a world of darkness', this explains to the audience why the scream keeps going black.

The sound we hear next is screaming and then we see a woman running up a staircase. The voice thats screaming is shouting 'Mother' so we instantly know that the girl screaming is the lady who's running up the stairs daughter. The lady running up the staircase is dressed in blue because of the pastel colour it gives a feeling of calm and is not harsh. When the woman reaches the room we are shown the bed voilently shaking and the audience don't get to see what's going on which gives them a feeling of curiousity. There is also another voice which we have not heard before which makes the audience realise there is someone else in the room. The next shot is the mother. The shot is a close up and it stills for around 3 seconds in this time the audience see the shocked look on the mothers face and instantly know that something is wrong. The voice over also says 'No-body expected it'.

The next shots are fast paced and show voilence. We see what we believe is the girl in the bed attack what we assume is a police officer. The police officers are shown in a high angled shot which shows the audience they are superior. The noise shown at these shots of the trailer are screaming and we assume that the terror aspect of the film has gotten worse. The voice over continues to describe the story and he keeps repaeating the word 'It' this shows the audience that the person creating the chaos is something different to what we know.

The next shot is an over the shoulder shot in which we see a man telling someone that 'they're are no experts'. He then goes on to explain how the girl is possessed and needs an exorcism and this gives us and explanation for the title of the film. A white door is then shown and the camera pans towards it. The colour white is usually symbolised with purity and vunralabilty because the girl is 'possesed' it shows contrast between the two. As the camera is still panning the voice of the officer is still talking and then we hear a womans voice. The woman we then find out is the mother if the possesed girl.

Through out the whole trailer we are not shown the face of the girl fully. We get a 1 second close up glance at her face and that is it. Because of this it leaves the audience curious as to what has possesed the girl and the features she has. We are also not shown the face of the man who preforms the excorism. By doing this is leaves him mysterious and leaves the trailer at a cliff hanger.