Horror Trailer

This film trailer has many different conventions of horror involved. Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark is going to be released in 2011, they find out they have monsters which are living in dark areas of the house for years and they come to haunt the people living in the house. At the start of the trailer we get to see the setting and surroundings of the film, we see a huge mansion which is placed in the middle of nowhere. And during the trailer we see that there are many rooms and different vents which is very common in a horror film. We see and unusual large room filled with old junk which gives the impression that this house is quite mysterious, and makes you wonder how old the house really is. The lightening throughout the trailer is very dim and mostly dark which is when the monsters like to mess around with the family, but mainly the little girl.

Another convention which is given is that we get a variation of different camera angles throughout the trailer. An example is where we see a point of view shot of the little girl who helps us get into her character and try and get a reaction out of us, and then a reaction shot to show the terror on her face. We also see a lot of medium shots and close ups which can help the audience which can be unsettling to the viewers as we can’t see most of the surroundings. The sounds which are used in this trailer are quite eerie and sharp. The use many different diegetic sounds such as the door creaking and the soft footsteps of the little girl to make it more effective. They also use a Non- diegetic sound which is the whispers of the monsters throughout the trailer which makes us think about where the monsters actually are.

Also during this trailer they use a variety of different iconography aspects. The first one which I spotted was that they have placed objects in the film to get the audience to believe that this is a horror film, such as, the doll which she loses which can connote innocence of the girl. We also see a tool box which gets knocked over in one of the scenes which is to show the weapons and that they are going to be used. Another thing that we see is that it’s mostly dark throughout the trailer which is used in a lot of horrors, which can connote evil and danger. Also we see a dark, dusty, cold basement which is placed in the trailer which makes us understand that it’s a horror film. In various parts of the trailer we see different shapes of the shadows which make it more mysterious and creepy.

For this trailer the narrative structure which is used is the classic Hollywood narrative as we can tell that there could be a sequel for this film or they will resolve the situation and get rid of the monsters. This theory is based on Todorov’s theories into film structure.


In this trailer we see a variety of different character types, such as the little girl who could maybe be classed as the final girl but they usually use an older woman for that role. But she can be classed as being the main protagonist, as she is the one being haunted by the monsters in the house. We see the married couple who can be classed as being the innocent family and not really knowing what’s going on and doesn’t want to believe the little girl at first. We also have monsters which are hidden in the house and we can see that they have been there for many years.

The theme of this particular horror would have to be the hidden evil inside. Because we see at the start of the trailer that they don’t know that they are there, but during the trailer they start to realise that there is something evil living inside the house.