Here I am going to analyse the sound. mise en scene, editing and camera work from the 2017 horror movie trailer, Halloween Returns. This is so that I can get an understanding of and recognise the forms and conventions of horror trailers, so that I can use and develop them in my own work when I construct my own slasher trailer later in the unit.
This trailer was from YouTube, therefore edited for all ages
and audiences.
It begins with an establishing, low angle shot. It shows a
suburban street which reminds the audience that it is Halloween. The street
lights are not at full pelt which shows a scary, imposing atmosphere. A figure
walks in the middle of the road with a flashing red light behind it, which has
connotations of death, anger and murder. The shot fades to black, and then
fades into the next shot, this is a common convention in horror film trailers
because it shows a slow-paced start,
The next shot shows the figure to be a girl, evidently just
killed someone, with a car following behind her. She exclaim “I killed him”.
This usually takes place at the end of slasher films, therefore this is
unconventional. The breaking of conventions makes it more interesting and engages
the audience more, as it is something they haven’t seen before. It fades to
black again.
The handheld camera suggests urgency and documentary
realism, therefore plunging the viewer into the dangerous cinematic universe in
which this narrative is taking place. An elliptical edit shows the previous
screaming girl taken to hospital, which is the only equilibrium we see, this is
another unconventional part, as the final girl is usually not shown to get to
this point, the films often stop just as she starts to escape. The lightning
and rain in the window are conventions of horror films, they have connotations
of fear, power and pain.
The trailer is punctuated with piercing, shrill noises to
draw attention to important elements e.g. a female nurse being found dead on
the floor. The hospital corridor is empty and vacant which is a binary opposite
to how it usually looks, populated with doctors and light. This shows the
absence of help and authority, as if it’s no longer a safe place. The killer
appears in a low angle shot, which conveys power, and a sense of superiority
over the viewer, which helps to instil fear into the audience.
Irregular angles and asymmetric shapes suggest a fractured
environment, reminiscent of German Expressionism. Upward, low angle shots of
the stairwell shows the killer standing at the top, reinforcing the power
ideology, which is a convention in slasher films. The frame is slightly canted
and irregular, therefore unsettling and somewhat skewed – this illustrated the
nature of the subject. This is followed by a quick burst edit of a female
screaming, this is a more efficient way of showing that the killer eventually
got to the girl, without showing the full scene, in order to fit it into the
trailer.
She runs into the bathroom, and the camera composes her as
framed inside a small area of light, all else is squandered by darkness, which
shows that she is the most important and valued object in the shot, it conveys
her strong narrative agency. She is wearing only underwear, which has connotations
of vulnerability – a common convention of the final girl. This links in with
the male gaze theory, coined by Laura Mulvey, in which the camera is a
masculine medium, used to look down upon promiscuous, scantily clad girls for
the male audience’s voyeuristic enjoyment.
The mask from the original Halloween films is shown, which
is a reference for the fans of the originals, and keeps them engaged, hoping
for more nostalgic flashbacks, and it further reinforces their desire to watch
the film. At this moment, the deep voice over returns; “The birth of evil” ,
and a shot of a little boy confronted by a dark figure is shown. These are
binary opposites, the clear divide between youthful, open innocence, and the
figure’s dark, closed demeanour.
The orange fairy lights in the background reinforce the
Halloween theme. There is a picket fence in the background which suggests
suburban serenity, and conveys the idea that even safe suburbia can be the
scene for a serial killer. It is presumed that this child is the younger
incarnation of Michael Myers, the villain from the original films. This is
therefore Michael Myer’s equilibrium, the calm before the storm.
The narrator continues; “Now the secret behind his madness
will finally be revealed”, and a shot of the house used in the original
Halloween films is shown. The sound builds and the editing gets quicker. The
girl is inside the bathroom and as she closes the bathroom door/mirror, the
killer is shown in the mirror, and it is shown as her. This introduces the idea
of the monstrous feminine. In order to defeat the monster she must first become
monstrous.
The release date plaque is then shown, white on black text.
Blood is splattered all over the text which reinforces the slasher genre. There
is then a montage edit of multiple different people, including the minor side
characters featured in all slasher films e.g. the futile authority figure. The
narrator says “Michael is more evolved” – which suggests supernatural qualities
of the killer. The final shot shows the killer descending onto the girl, with
jolted screams played over the top. This symbolises the end of the trailer.
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