Wednesday, 21 October 2009

Textual Analysis On A Trailer - Slasher Horror


A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

What genre is the film, and how does the trailer indicate this?

We can see from the trailer that the film is a horror. Many elements contribute to this, such as the use of suspenseful music which gives the trailer an atmosphere and tells us when to be scared and the use of sound effects such as "whoosh's" which bring impact onto a particular scene and make the trailer seem very fast paced and hard hitting. The colour used in the trailer also shows the genre to be horror as its very cold and blue tinted, which we see in alot of horror films and backs up the element of the supernatural/strange killers in the film, the most common example of this blue tint is Halloween (1978).


Other aspects that show the trailer to be for a horror film are the fades and transitions in the editing. There are alot of "fade to black's" used and they seem to linger on black for longer than usual, as they transition between very different scenes, to show that the killings taking place are caused by the man we are seeing in between each of the fades towards the end of the trailer.



The titles used also show the trailer is for a horror film as the black background is blood splattered and the white writing looks as it's been splashed with blood also.



What do you learn of the story of the film from this trailer?

From this trailer I know that a mob chases and kills a man they know as "Kruger" because they think he's done something to earn him the title of "sick bastard" and he comes back to life as some sort of ghost/demon. We know its the same man as the killer is wearing the same jumper we see the man wear as he's dying, he's burnt alive so that explains why the killers face is badly burned and disfigured.



"Kruger" returns as this disfigured killer in teenagers dreams and starts hurting/killing them whilst there asleep. The trailer also has a theme of disrupted childhood innocence as there are repeated images of little girls in old fashioned dresses playing, and the background music is a rhyme about "Freddy" the killer coming to get you while you're asleep.

What social groups are represented in this film, and how? Are stereotypes and conventional values supported or subverted?

Parents are represented as I believe it's a group of parents that kill Freddy at the start of the trailer, they believe he's done something wrong, so they are shown to be almost vigilantes as they are trying to protect their children from this man. This may be a conventional stereotype, taken to the very extremes, as it's common for parents to believe they'd do anything to protect their children and in this context it does seem believable as such a large crowd has gathered to kill Freddy. Teenagers are also represented but in the trailer we arn't given alot of information about the characters themselves, just that they are scared of this man and that they seem to be there for one another. Freddy Kruger's character has obviously done something wrong, the signs In the film point towards him being a paedophile as there are parents riled up into a mob attempting to kill him ad calling him "sick", images of children; trapped behind bars in what appears to be Freddy's world in the dreams, and the fact that the dreams he is haunting are those of teenagers whilst they are asleep and very venerable. The fact that Freddy is murdered shows that he got his comeuppance, but then he returns in a place where he can't be stopped and he seems to get his revenge. From the trailer, I get the impression that the film is on Freddy's side. He claims innocence, and we don't know if the allegations are true or not, and then he gets his revenge. I think this is a strange image to present through a trailer as it will most likely make the audience feel uncomfortable; feeling as though they are empathising with a paedophile, but the film is a horror, its been created to make the audience scared and uncomfortable and by drawing the audience into the characters more, they will feel more connected to the plot.

What do you think the target audience for this film is?
I think the target audience for this film could be varied. It's a remake of a 1984 film so the people who saw the original perhaps in their teen years could now be in their 40's and want to see the remake. Horror is a very vast genre and can attract many different types of people, but most new horror films seem to be aimed at teenagers, as they have a mostly teenage cast, much like Nightmare On Elm Street and the actors have usually been in something else aimed at teenagers, such as Kellan Lutz who appears in this film and is also currently starring in the massively popular Twilight series, which is very popular with teenagers and could alone be a selling point.

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