The Last House On The Left - 2009 (remake)
This trailer is an advertisment for the remake of 1972 film The Last House On The Left. Several trailer based conventions are used in order to effectively advertise it to a target audience.
The name of the movie is shown toward the end of the film but is said at the beginning of the trailer; the location is used as the title to emphasise the isolated location of the setting. Production values are shown throughout the trailer in the form of visual and inter-titled references. The notion of a remake holds it's own set of values, previous fanatics will be intrigued as to the justice the modern version pays to the original. Closely linked to this is the inter-titled reference of famous horror director Wes Craven; Craven also wrote and directed the original.
A combination diegetic and non-diegetic dialogue is used, often appearing as a voice over, it is used to introduce the characters and depict the location, however, the inter-text titles outine the story in more detail, e.g.: when it says "It was a place to hide" and "It was the wrong house". Again the prevelence of the house is emphasised throughout and implies that an ideal homebase of family is broken down. The titles are shown to be interspersed with various clips of the film.
Music is introduced to the trailer mid-way through the trailer and creates a point of contrast and confusion. An up-beat melodic cover version of Guns n Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" is played over the montage of horrific and savage clips. A contrast is shown between the softness of the music and the harsh imagery; there are connotations between the easily recognised song and the subject matter. The parents of the raped and tortured girl are shown to be taking revenge on her attackers and the reference to the song is clearly intertextual, "Sweet Child Of Mine" and is representation for the love of their daughter. This depiction plays on the idea of the victims becoming the monster in order to defeat the monsters, but is justified by the music type.
The advert clarifies the horror genre by using a vast array of technical codes.
The entire film appears to be shot using a handheld camera and emphasises the lack of safety and security within the subject matter. Initially, there is little shake and the camera appears to be held fairly steadily. But still, it is obvious something will go wrong. As the structure of the advert develops the shaking increases to coincide harmoniously with the events taking place.
Editing is used effectively in this film in cohesion with Todorovs narrative theory. The beginning shows a series of steady shots with a fairly long cuts and illustrates the equilibrium in the story. As the story unfolds the series of disruption, disequilibrium and resolutions are used with short fast cuts to show snippets of the horrendous imagery. This both creates suspense, action and entices the target audience with the most horrific scenes of the film - acting on the perverse intrigue of the horror fanatics. A new equilibrium is shown with a final long cut as the revenge-crazy parent appears to have defeated the attackers of his child. The image show left shows the new eqilibrium depicted in the advert. The attacker is detained but it is clear there is more sinister activity about to take place, the advert finishes in suspense, what happens to the detained man is unknown, this entices the audience to find out how the plot develops.The most iconic aspect of this trailer, to me, is the use of contrasting music. I feel that the soft and melodic tune juxtaposes the subject matter in a way that creates an immediate unease. An unease in the mismatch of audio and video, but also in that the song represents and justifies the actions of the parents in the advert and ultimately makes the viewer question themselves.
Paranormal Activity 2 - Trailer Conventions
Paranormal Activity 2 trailer starts off with the ending of the first film. This suggests that the second film is a direct sequel to the first however it does not mention if it takes place before or after the first film. We can tell that this movie is a horror movie due the video footage of an audience screaming and jumping at the film. The colour scheme of the film is very dark and the audio is very limited. For example, there is no music and only sound effects throughout the trailer. Considering that there is no speech within the trailer, this also shows that this is a horror movie. With most horror movies, the title of the film is not shown to the end. This keeps the audience in suspense to see what the movie is actualy called. If we do not find out what the movie is called, the audience will not know what film they are looking for when they go to see it. The main prodcution values of Paranormal Acitivty 2 are the special effects used within the film to create scenes which makes the audience jump out of their skins. Simple effects have been used, but they obviously proved to be very effective.
Horror Conventions
The Paranormal Acitivity 2 trailer is set within a family home in America. When we visualise a family we home we expect everything to be positive and happy. So we expect anything but paranormal activity.There are two main camerawork features within Paranormal Activity 2 trailer. Handheld camerawork with the main characters and CCTV footage.
We see a couple of characters within the Paranormal Activity 2 trailer. We see a girl, a baby and possibly a mum. We hear the voice of a man who could be the dad in charge of the camera.
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