R17: Textual analysis of horror film trailer (for radio)

Textual analysis of horror film trailers(for radio)

I decided to listen to trailers of horror films to analyse the sound composition to aid me when me and my partner create our radio trailer for our short horror film.

The trailer I decided to listen to is Ouija: Origin of Evil Official Trailer 2 (2016).

Music:

Non-diegetic incidental music does not start until 14 seconds into the trailer and the choice of music used is very unconventional to horror film trailers. For example, an upbeat house music is played, while the older female protagonist explains what a Ouija board is to little girl. This creates juxtaposition between the nature of the conversation and the type of music being played, because essentially the older female is talking about a taboo game that should never be used, thus building tension. In contrast, the house music has a calming effect, which thus cancels out the tension and creates a sense of equilibrium to listeners. Therefore, the listeners are likely to feel confused, as to whether the Ouija boards means a bad thing or a good thing, creating an enigma code, but considering their knowledge on the horror genre, listeners are more likely to assume that the Ouija board means bad news, because it connotes to spiritual possession and consumption, thus death.

Dialogue:

This particular trailer is a very dialogue heavy trailer, which is conventional of a horror radio trailer, because in radio trailers, the lack of visuals means sound codes such as dialogue are a way for listeners to understand how the characters in the trailer are feeling. For example, when an older lady questions "Spirits are your there"and a younger girl replies "yes we are". The use of the plural "we", indicates to the audience that the little girl, is not who she is actually is. Moreover, the use of a young child, is conventional to horror films, as it is the innocence of children that attracts spirits and thus this particular dialogue links with this idea. This also connotes to the idea of spirits overtaking the human world and feeding on those live, thus this works to build anxiety within listeners, as listeners may begin to assume that trouble is coming. As a result, listeners may begin to fidget more and whisper unconsciously, which agrees with Cherry's idea that "technical codes of cinema are manipulated in order to bring about emotional and physiological responses.

Sound effects:

The use of sound effects in this particular trailer is significant, because sound effects in this trailer have certain representative roles. For example, throughout the entire trailer static analogue radio sounds are used to represent the appearance of spirits, for instance when a female character asks "who are you talking to", static analogue radio sounds effects are layered behind this dialogue. As a result, listeners can use this particular sound effect as a way of identifying that there is a ghost among the characters and thus may induce the listeners to feel that there is a ghost amongst themselves, because listeners may identify with the characters, in the sense that listeners may understand there is something weird happening. Therefore, tension and fear may build in the listeners, as listeners attempt to link the static sounds with the ghosts.

Silence:

Silence is minimal and barely used in this particular horror film trailer and this is conventional in horror film trailers, because the horror genre is very reliant on music, sound effects and music, because it is these sound codes that help to build tension in the audience. In this particular horror film trailer, silence is used abruptly and for a split second, for example, an extremely short silence is used when a little girl screams and a punching sound effect is used in the middle of the horror trailer. As a result, this silence is effective, because of how short and rapid the silence is, as the static sound following the silence, seems a lot louder and thus creates a jump scare for the audience. Moreover, the use of the silence after a little girl screams, may connoted to the audience that the little girl has been possessed by the ghost and thus helps to build fear and concern in the audience.