Trailer Analysis #1 - Sinister

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kbQAJR9YWQ ...Link to trailer...


The ‘Sinister’ trailer starts the same, with the green full screen age rating, and again it is followed by the production company logo, Summit Entertainment. The first shot is a establishing shot of a house at night, there is quiet eerie music playing in the background to build tension and there is the non-diegetic sound of a radio presenter reading out news about recent murders. At the same time there are close up shots of pictures of families and children. There is then a full screen saying ‘9 Months later’ and there is then a shot of the same house but in the day, as a new family is moving into it. The mood is happier now and the music has stopped, furthermore the fact that it is day instead of night is a use of pathetic fallacy. 

Establishing shot of the house. Lighting is very effective, sets a sombre mood.

There is non-diegetic sound of the father talking to his children telling them why they had to move house to inform the audience. Again, like in Insidious there are several short shots of the family looking happy and the father saying positive things like ‘I have a great feeling about this’. But as in Insidious, there is a shot of the attic where the mood suddenly changes. The father is putting boxes away into storage and he sees an ominous black box in the middle of the attic. The music turns scary again and the father’s non-verbal codes show fear and anxiety.  There is then a full screen title saying ‘from the makers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious’, to show that this is a professional, high budget horror film and also to make fans of those other movies more interested in this movie.


The text is on a cracked, dirty white wall and has a light above it flickering, this creates a scary atmosphere, even in the title card. In the box there father finds an old camera along with a set of old film reels labelled with different dates. There is a low angle shot on the father as he begins to watch the films, to show he is still in control at this point and nothing bad has yet happened to him. The films show an almost over the top happy scene. There are kids playing in a garden on a sunny day, everything in the shot shows happiness and calmness, and he father says that is it the family that used to live here. Straight away it cuts to a shot of the family hanging in a row from a tree and the father jumps up looking shocked at the screen. This use of binary opposition, from a very happy scene to a very morbid one is quite shocking for the viewer. It is very effective to use a film within the film as we get to see the characters reaction to it and it matches our own, which reinforces the emotion. 
The next few seconds are filled with shots of the father talking to a policeman. The shots are now from a much higher angle to show the father is losing authority.

The titles that Sinister used- these heavily inspired our own titles.

The trailer soon becomes very dark and twisted as there are shots of the children becoming enticed and tricked by the monster. The mood of the trailer has completely changed and all the shots of very cold colours and are dimly lit. There is the sound of a camera rolling in the background and at the same time a series of scary shots in very quick succession. The sound gets louder and louder and the shots get faster and faster until there is an extreme close up of the father and it goes silent. It then shows a POV of him looking into the attic and the monster jumps out at the camera. This is to scare the audience and make them want to go and watch the movie. The name of the film comes on screen with the same background of the white wall. The trailer ends with information about the movie such as credits and websites for it, as well as the tagline ‘Have you seen him’. I think taglines are very important, especially in horror movies and we will probably use one in our own trailer.