Trailer Reaserch- Horror

After analysing all of the horror trailers nominated in the golden trailer awards, certain similarities keep cropping up. Most notable to me is a combination of fast editing and fast tempo music towards the end of a lot of the trailers to emphasise the danger and climax found in the film. Many of these fast edits are some of the jump scares in the film, particularly in the trailers for Mama, which conveys all of the scares found in the trailer.

 Also common is the low lighting found in not all, but the majority of the trailers. This is clearly to set the tone of the film and build an uncomfortable atmosphere. Due to this slower build of fear the Awakening, in my opinion, is one of the more effective horror trailers. It’s slightly unconventional in that unlike some of the other trailers such as mama, sinister or the possession, there are very few jump scares displayed in the trailer. Instead there is a lot of low lighting and a lot of effective camera angles, particularly a long shot, to give the viewer a better special awareness of the environment, and a close up which shows the characters emotion. In my opinion this is more effective as it builds more of a scary atmosphere than some other trailers.

However to be fair some of the other trailers to a good job of balancing a creepy atmosphere with intense scares, particularly Mama and Sinister. The music used in the trailers is also critical as it can project both of these, as found in a lot of trailers, it dramatically rises during quickly edited scenes, or it can be quite a creepy to build atmosphere. Some trailers even use silence to their advantage as evident multiple times in Mama, as the silence can emphasizes the scare when there is nothing but non-diegetic sound in a scene. Many trailers do this in the very last scene they show right after the climax of the music, such as in the Possession and Mama.

But what is also important in a trailer is how much it shows the audience. Most of the trailers do not show a great deal of whatever is trying to kill the main characters, this is unfortunately were I think the trailer Mama is not so effective. In my opinion, and definitely in comparison to the other trailers, it shows too much of the monster. This is again, why I feel  the Awakening is the more effective trailer, as the ghost is hardly ever shown, yet thought he tension and atmosphere its presence is still felt. Sinister actually also find a clever loophole around this by showing the antagonist, but indirectly, through a film within the trailer