What Makes A Good Poster ?

Creepy typography, high contrast illustrations, horrific creatures and ominous taglines are trademarks of effective horror movie posters. Creating an aura of mysteriousness while freaking out your audience simultaneously, works best for these posters. Raw terror and excitement is what a good horror poster should convey, this is needed to make the audience interested in seeing a particular film.

F.W. Murnau’s German silent classic Nosferatu (1922) is the original and some say most frightening DRACULA adaptation, taking Bram Stoker’s novel and turning it into a haunting, shadowy dream full of dread. The poster was created by an artist who obviously wanted to use high contrast to add to the obvious creepiness of the bloodsucking creature. I like the idea of having the poster hand drawn because of how unique it looks. 

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was one of the first horror films to use editing software within there film poster in order to create this clean cut and simple look to the poster. Even thought there is not much withing the poster to give away the story plot, the fact that we are given only a small amount of information adds to the mystery of the film. 

An American Werewolf in London (1981) was one of the first films that within there movie poster they included a shot from the actual film, within the poster we are shown are two lead male characters startled in the dead of night, we are introduced to one of the main conventions of the monster/ werewolf genre which is the full moon. 
  
Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Shaun of the dead is a Zombie-Rom-Com (zombie film crossed with romantic comedy). This genre is something I explored when looking into what genre of film I wanted to do. In my opinion the movie poster has too much going on in it, it is very entertaining and eye catching but does not tell you much about the story plot and just shows us that there are zombies in it. We are having to rely on what we know about the stars of the films and what type of films we know that they are normally in.

Dawn of the Dead, is another zombie apocalypse film, I like the movie poster because of how simple and effective the image it, although I do like the older look of film posters so I am considering for my film poster for my film run having the same concept of a simple background and a hand drawn or painted image of a zombie on it and then the information on top.

Poster Conventions

Poster conventions

Every poster made must be appealing, eye-catching, and different in order to grasp the attentions of the viewing public. Film posters tend to stick to similar layouts to each other too, and below are several of the conventions that can appear on film posters.

-Tagline - This can set the tone for the poster, as an engaging or mysterious tagline can leave the viewing public wanting to know more. A Tagline should leave the person who has just read it wanting to look on further into the poster.

-Title for the film - This is clearly a big importance to the poster, as it defines the name of the film. The style for this tends to vary although the concepts of the title for the film will always have the same aim, to grasp the attention of the public. A large font and special text will do this.

-Actor names - This is also a frequent feature among film posters, although the names of the credited actors tend to be more discrete and placed at the bottom of the poster for example. The main actors names will appear at some point on the poster and also the actors themselves in their roles may appear also.

-Film related images - It will always help if film related images appear at some point on the poster, this can be to unveil more to the viewing public. Although depending on the film genre this can vary, as a genre such as horror may have not many images relating back to the film, this could be to create a sense of mystery amongst the viewers and also to leave them guessing.

-Release date - This is a key feature also, as once the poster has been examined and the ideas of the film have been discovered, the viewer will want to know when the film is to be released.

-Website for film - A link to the film is always useful to the viewing public, especially if they are interested in gaining more of an insight into the film, or perhaps they want to explore the concepts of the film further such as explore the soundtrack to the film, look more into the characters or even engage in a Twitter or Facebook conversation

Researching Zombie Posters

Representation of Women

Representation of Women in Horror films

The representations of gender in horror films essay from Beccihammond

In horror films women are typically represented as a damsel in distress, someone who needs to be rescued and taken care of as they are incapable of looking after themselves. The women that we see in horror films tend to vary little in age and appearance, they all tend to be young women who are quite ‘pretty’ or attractive.
Women are shown in horror films through the 'male gaze', this is the way in which we view women within horror films, even when the women are strong and independent characters they are still overly sexualised. Shots to make a ‘Male Gaze’ include long body shots, panning/looking up at the woman. It has always been conventional to horror films that the women are supposed to be portrayed as a figure of beauty and desire whilst the villain is portrayed as a gruesome heartless killer. 

The film, the descent in many ways subverts this expectation of women to be weak within the horror industry, within the film the all female cast shows how women can survive in these situations although if you look closely the only way that are lead character suvives this horrific ordeal is through transforming into one of the creatures that she is facing and the film is also shot from a male gaze, this is clearly shown through the blood bath sequence where are female fights off the only other female creature we see.