Film Poster Analysis

SCARY MOVIE 5 POSTER

From the poster of Scary Movie 5, we can immediately see that the film will contain themes of horror. This is because of the characters you can see on the poster itself and also the name of the film gives this away to the audience. The character that stands out the most in terms of genre identity is the monster like character that lies behind the other characters.

 This character is by far the scariest of all the other characters and the use of make-up and costume contributes to this. Other things that help the audience identify the idea of horror is the use of smoke-like effects in background of the poster. This smoke has connotations of mystery and eeriness. However, the Scary Movie franchise is most famous for its comedic approach to existing horror film references. Therefore the poster must also give of the idea that there will be comedic themes within the film. This is done well as a lot of the characters on the poster have large, over exaggerated facial expressions which can help create comedy. Also, there are very surreal elements to the poster that also create comedy and these include a smoking teddy bear, the monster's absurdly long arms and a very concerned looking priest (in which comedy is generated through the use of facial expression). All of these elements put together are a very good example of how to portray to an audience the idea that this film is a Comedy Horror film.

Within this poster there aren't many clues to what happens within the narrative however there is a lot of clues in terms of characters. On the poster there are a lot of different characters, in which have different roles and personalities. Also the use of colour in the poster is effective as iconic colours for the horror genre are used e.g. Reds, Blacks, Murky colours. However, among these surrounding, iconic colour codes there are characters who are wearing more colourful outfits. This breaks the sense of horror within the poster and this is effective as it is very 'in your face' and vibrant and therefore catches the attention of their audience. This combination of iconic horror colours and bright, vibrant colours help put across the genre of the film which is comedy horror.

The layout of the poster is very simple as the characters are all positioned in the middle of the poster, showing that they all have relevance to the films narrative. Also, this makes the characters a sense of vulnerability as they are enshrouded by a mysterious mist or smoke that surrounds the characters at the edges of the poster. this creates a sense of horror. There is also a light above all the characters shining towards the person who is looking at the poster. This implies that the characters on the poster are watching a movie and incidentally are also looking at out of the poster towards the audience. This appeals to their audience as it makes them feel as if they are part of the poster and that they are involved with the film and this makes the audience want to go see the film.

Also, on the top of the poster, it says "You've never seen activity like this." This hints to the audience that the film will in some way create a parody of the horror film 'Paranormal Activity' and this is implied through the use of the word 'activity' and also the genre of the film itself. Also the font of the words "Scary Movie" is shown in three dimensions which immediately catches the eye of the audience and connotes that this film is packed with comedy that's very 'in your face'.