Lewis L's A2 Media Blog

This trailer uses several horror conventions to make sure that it is a success among it's target audience. IT takes place in a large isolated house, which is a conventional setting in horror, known as the 'haunted house', it is usually a big a creepy old house, with one place that you can't get into. In this trailer we see this exact concept. "There are more than 30 rooms in all", this gives the audience a clue as to the scale of the building, the main protagonist, or 'final girl' then goes on to say, "there's a door in the attic, it doesn't open". This has now confirmed in the audiences mind where the horror is to be found. The genre of horror often plays of disabilities, and we can also see that in this trailer, "he can't talk at all". This immediately makes the audience want to no what happened to him, and therefore they will keep watching. They find out that "it happened a month ago, up in the attack". This is the room which the "Skeleton Key" doesn't open. This will make them want to see the film, because the automatically need to no what’s inside that room that’s so horrifically terrorising that it caused the Man to have a stroke. This trailer uses the past, and voodoo to add a sense of ancient terror. All the unanswered questions are used specifically to make the audience go and see the film. The lighting is very dark in this trailer, and the Mise En Scene consists of old objects that look like they haven't been used for years, especially in the 'voodoo' room, and in the majority of the house. I like the sound at the start of this trailer, it's not conventional for horror, but does work because it creates a representation of the place they live in and that their may be spells at work. Towards the end of the trailer we hear some more conventional type sounds, for example, bangs and lighting strikes to match the cuts, and high pitch strings to build the tension.