The Loved Ones trailer analysis

The Loved Ones is the first feature film for short filmmaker Sean Byrne. The Ambience Entertainment production was completely shot in Melbourne, Victoria. The film stars Xavier Samuel,Jessica McNamee, Robin McLeavy and Richard Wilson.

It was originally given an 18+ by the Australian Classification Board, but through an appeal by the Review Board, the rating was successfully overturned and given an 15+ due to the comedy aspect of the film, mitigating the sadistic aspect and impact of the violence.

"Lola Stone asked Brent Mitchell to the prom, but Brent said no, and now he's screwed. What happens when Lola doesn't get what she wants? She enlists Daddy's help to throw a prom of her own where she is queen and Brent is king, whether he likes it or not. The Loved Ones is what happens when puppy love goes horribly, violently wrong. Brent should have said yes." -- (C) Paramount


This trailer consists of roughly 109 shots, which is alot compared to most trailers which average at around 60, but this could be due to it's slightly longer time of 2:33, whereas most other horror trailers come in at around 1:30. I feel this longer trailer is due to it spending half of the trailer appearing as a normal film, using longer shots, and getting you to know the characters, in comparison to the usual horror movie trailer which aims to shock, scare and intrigue the viewer as quickly as possible.

The shots are fast paced from the start, although paired with vibrant music and usual happenings on-screen, this creates an excitement, rather than panic, especially as the subject being discussed is prom night. There is also a sense of comedy in the first half, with scenes such as the guy failing to impress his date by sliding off of his car. This contrasts with the dark, heavy mood usually produced by horror movie trailers.

Comedy element added to first half of film by the 'donor'

Dialogue is heavily present in the first half, with it guiding the trailer through, and introducing you to the main characters. Shots with the dialogue included are typically longer and static, including lots of 'over the shoulder' shots, so the viewer is placed in the third person.

One of the many 'over the shoulder' shots - third person effect.

The fast paced shots are usually flashes, or one second pieces, but it creates a buzz and an excitement, as apposed to the fear usually connotated with horror movies.

The film dramatically changes it's mood when the villain asks the hero to go to the dance with her, and he denies, as he is already going with someone else. Music stops, and then a more typically horror score is played. She is then introduced as the villain stalker as the hero meets up with the heroine (his girlfriend),  and she is caught staring outside of their car at them making out.

A medium close up of the villain standing directly outside the car, with the scene cut right after the couple's intimate exchange.

Propp's character theory emerges heavily in this trailer. We have the hero played by the lead male, the stalker as the villain. These two character roles typically become the main in the film industry and this trailer follows this. The 'princess' is placed in the form of the hero's girlfriend, with the villain/stalker seeking out to hurt her by hurting the hero. The role of the father is placed on the villain's side, with him helping her with her wishes instead of assisting the hero. The donor could of said to be the hero's best friend, with him providing comedy in the trailer and also persuading him to go to the dance, thus prompting on his adventure or path.

'hero'

'donor'

'princess/heroine'

'father'

'villain'

This trailer heavily targets it's film towards the teenage audience market. Within the first few seconds there is a scene of the heroine in her underwear, and it is also firstly set in a school and the characters are teenage, with a teenage event being gossiped about - all things that teenagers can relate to. In the first half of the trailer to draw the male teenage audience members in they have included a shot of the heroine in her underwear, a make-out scene, and also a lingering close up trailing up a female's body to grab their attention. It puts the female's as objects, giving them little dialogue in the trailer, which plays up to the male fantasy.

The heroine is shown in her underwear for no explained reason.

The donor/hero's best friend appears as senselessly drunk, vulnerable and slutty.

This is typical of horror movies, where the female is placed as a side character or object, with the male taking lead, however it is also atypical in the fact that it places the villain as a woman, whereas conventually it is a man. The film hands the power over to the female gender, and therefore scares the male audience entrapped by the enticing scenes in the first half - they get a glimpse of the 'good' side of girls and then are shocked with the 'evil' side of them.

After the kidnapping, shots become longer, leaving the viewer hanging to know what has happened and provoking interest. It also allows time for the side-characters, such as the heroine to see that the hero is missing and dialogue is lastly a main feature in this area.

This is the area where Todorov's narrative theory comes into play. The equilibrium controls the first half of the trailer, and then halfway through the event and the recognition of the event occurs - the kidnapping and the discovery of the missing male lead. Later in the trailer, it shows the character pleading, which could be said as being the attempt to fix the event, and also the heroine playing hero by contacting people to let them know about the abduction.

A blur effect is used to describe the hero's awakening, which gives viewers a feeling of confusion, and being in a drugged and dazed state. The shot is also shown through the characters eyes, which connects them directly with the hero. The shots from here-forth mainly include the audience as part of the scene, making them feel the emotions of the characters, rather than just watching them as a passer by.

Shots putting the viewer in the victims point of view, increasing threat.

Shots stay long and static during this time to allow the viewer to adjust to the transition in mood, scenery
and direction of the trailer. It sets up a completely different story. Dialogue is shortened and consists of orders at this point, slowly increasing the threat. Extreme close ups are used to heighten the terror and focus in on the lead characters emotions to really hammer them into the audience and help share them with the viewers.

The majority of shots in the second half of the trailer are shot from underneath - this makes the audience feel powerless, below the subject on screen and weaker, further placing them in the position of the victim/hero.

The first half of film is a usual movie trailer, with no horror conventions are present, which tricks you into believing that this is a film about prom and a romance. The villain is introduced halfway through, and from that point the music changes, as do the shots and it introduces the usual horror conventions
setting in set early on - school, teenage horror movie. It sets the viewer up for a typical high school horror movie, such as Prom Night, which focuses on the Slasher genre with killings surrounding prom.

Although, it pauses halfway through, changing location and narrowing characters down as to increase tension. This draws it away from the conventional teen slasher movie that the viewer was expecting during the first half of the movie, and they are left shocked by the gory second half, which would attract
 horror fans more to watch this movie, as the teen slasher movie has become overplayed in recent years.

three quarters of the way through the trailer, shots begin to dramatically speed up.

Battle Royale trailer analysis

Battle Royale is a Japanese horror/thriller movie released in 2000. Japan is notoriously known for being critical of their youths, filling their lives with rules and also expecting alot from them. Japan also is a country of vast population in a dense area, so I feel that this trailer (and thus the film) is a backlash to this. It's a story of the people in power going too far with the rules, and also plays on the competition that comes with having a over-populated country. I would argue that this trailer puts the movie into the action horror sub-genre, with it also including on the psychological side by playing on the characters and viewer's fears of the parental figure going askew and the fear of the ones you hold close turning against you. The film aroused both domestic and international controversy, and was either banned outright or deliberately excluded from distribution in several countries

As is usual, the production companies trailers are shown at the beginning. These last less than two seconds as are uninteresting to the audience. However, sometimes these can be reflective of the style of film in the way that they are shown. The second logo, I feel, is representative. It doesn't scream 'horror', but it does signify the strictness of japan, and also the harsh school environment and the rules that are explained in the first half of the trailer.

A production company logo.

I feel that within the first six seconds, there is alot of foreshadowing. It starts by showing the student laughing, enjoying good times, and then they enter a dark tunnel, with no visible light at the end, which ends up becoming the subject of the movie and what becomes obvious to the students at a later time.

The starting equilibrium.

Foreshadowing by the tunnel with no light at the end.

The trailer first introduces us to the equilibrium, the students laughing on the bus; a school field trip. It descends into darkness, and then the event occurs and we are introduced to the main character, who is then knocked out by a parental figure of power. The main character recognises the event before the other student due to this, but the event is explained to the viewer, and the characters, through a teacher telling them that they are to play a game to kill each other. This therefore creates panic, and the trailer proceeds with the characters attempting to fix the event, by shooting and bloodily killing each other in fast succession, or playing the game, in other words. Therefore, this film does follow Todorov's theory of films having a defined narrative structure.

Shots, as with the majority of horror trailers, start out longer; in the first half they are around three seconds long each, as this gives the audience time to identify and get acquainted with the characters and the story. Shots in the first half are mainly either long shots or medium close ups, with them being static in movement. I feel the dramatic change of shots comes when the teacher announces the 'Battle Royale', and the camera pan around him - this gives the viewer a sense of things revolving around that man, and also of him being in power, and of course disorientating the audience.

After this break, a soundtrack is introduced which completely contrasts with the nature of what is being displayed on-screen; a piano classical piece to accompany the story of death. I feel this is to make the movie appear even more creepier, by re-enforcing that to some, this is just a 'game', and it gives an odd sense of calm to the audio, while the visual is dramatic. Shots from this point on become faster, they increase tempo, and also rely more heavily on ECU's to display fear in the character's faces, and there is also alot more movement in the scenes, which again speeds up the drama and threat.

An action shot with the camera tracking the character.

Dialogue is not used during the second half of the movie, with it focusing on the chase and action scenes with the sounds being provided by the soundtrack/score and also by the explosions and gun shots shown on screen through diegetic sound. The break in this comes right before the end, where the score cuts out and it closes in on a scene of two girls promising that they'll always be friends. This, however, is followed by a dramatic use of light in an close up of a female shining a light underneath her chin, and giving the camera a malevolent look, creating a creepy image straight after this heartfelt promise, which makes the viewer think this promise is hopeless, and gives the movie as a whole a desperate, hopeless feel.

Sound is this trailer is mainly non-diegetic, with it being provided by a soundtrack and a score placed on top of the clips to enhance the mood. There is dialogue in the trailer, but it is mainly asynchronous, closing in on the students expressions to the speech than the speaker.

In the trailer, Propp's theory is not fully recognised  In watching the trailer, the villain's are the people in power (teachers and the government), the hero is portrayed as the victim in the first half of the trailer, but is shown as more courageous during the second half, the helper and the princess are the same person, and can be seen in one scene running with held hands, and also the dispatcher is the same person as the villain  the evil teacher also sends them on their 'quest' to kill each other. It seems like these character types can be applied, yet not in the conventional way.

'hero'

'princess'

'victims'

'villian/donor'

The trailer is 1.44 minutes long, and within it contains 64 shots. In the beginning the shots are longer than usual for a trailer, as they set up the equilibrium, and then they get faster and faster as the trailer progresses, getting the viewer's senses heightened. However, throughout the trailer there are several longer shots, for example, a close up of a female raising a gun with a smile on her face, and these are always followed by a rapid succession of shots, in this case the outcome, and this works to disturb and shock the viewer. To slow things down and then speed things up leaves the viewer never knowing what's going to happen. At most, these lingering shots are still only 2 seconds long, as to not lose the viewer's attention.

In this trailer, the Claude Levi-Strauss theory is not completely present. The good/evil argument is not present because the ability to rebel is taken away. If looked at from afar, you could place the teacher at the beginner, who makes the students play the game, as the evil force, however it is still the students who are doing the killing. There is however a binary opposition; student/teachers or the young/old, which further scares the viewer as it takes a parental figure as the villain.

There is no obvious 'final girl' shown in the trailer, only glimpses of a female shown with the main character. However, this film does go against the gender stereotypes of females being the weak character's in horror movies, with several scenes in the trailer showing females killing and smiling whilst doing so, thus becoming the villain.

 It turns the violent slasher movies of the 70s, which contain mainly killings of helpless women on their head, with the females being in equal statures of power as the males. I feel that therefore the audience does not connect with the females in the trailer, but instead with the main male character, as he is the most repeated character in the trailer.

This film portrays the females as equivalent to males, with their being no typical 'male gaze' as commonly associated with horror movies, and the females shown are not shown as sexual objects. However, the females doing the fighting and ones getting injured are the more powerful characters, and also the more sexually attractive and outspoken, which fits in with the theory that those who stray outside of conservatism are the ones first to die.

 The final girl (the princess), shown in the trailer with scenes running with the male, is pure and innocent and so escapes with the aid of the hero, which thus portrays the 'final girl' as weak and helpless, which contrasts with the other strong females shown in the film.

The hero/victim with the weak, innocent 'final girl'/princess.

Scenes/locations are changed during the second half of the trailer in almost every shot, with the result becoming a jumpy effect, jumping from one location and event to another, giving the audience the feeling of multiple events happening at once, and also the feeling of no escape, heightening the fear. This jumpy cut effect however, conflicts with the music used at the time, which is classical. As I explained before, I feel this is done to disturb the audience, and give the feeling of something that's highly unusual and wrong a sense of normality and peace, which also confuses the viewer and leaves them further wanting to watch the movie. Again, during the second half of the movie, the camera is highly mobile. Several of the shots are tracking and panning shots, increasing the speed of the trailer and also the panic. They focus of following the characters through the scene, or following their actions.

An ECU of a character during an action scene.

There is no 'past' shown in this trailer, no dark reason for this game to be happening, nor a reason, which goes against the genre conventions, but makes the audience wonder as to why this is happening, and adds threat to the viewer, who would most likely be teen; the teenage audience is the biggest for the horror genre. The teen connects with the teen characters on screen, and thus senses a real threat. However, the majority of the trailer is shot at night, and on an isolated island so it follows, more than challenges, these conventions.

Throughout the first half of the film, static cuts is used alongside the movie clips about it 'never been seen before' and it being 'controversial', which makes the viewer want to see it to see whether it lives up to the promised hype. The background on these stills is of a broken glass effect tainted in dark red, which runs with the usual horror conventions of pain and darkness.

The halfway point is sectioned by a large period of black in the trailer, immediately after the title of the movie 'Battle Royale' is announced by the villain, connecting the idea of the movie and also of the 'game' with darkness and hopelessness.

The static shots continue through the second half, although with the broken mirror effect instead forming the stamp formation 'BR', the logo for the 'game' and appearing almost military. Quotes and sentence reviews are shown in equal sections again in the second trailer, from famous, trustworthy sources, which again heightens the viewers expectations for the movie.

It ends by explaining the rules of the game, '42 students', '3 days' '1 surviour', to sharply shock the viewer and wind the trailer down, leaving them again with the sense of hopelessness and a feeling of direty to the situation. This is contrasted with the scene played out at the very end, with the two female friends promising to always be friends, of course, which the viewer has learnt will never happen as ultimately at least one of them will have to die or kill the other.

The title of the film is shown at the end, as with typical with horror movies. In capitals the words 'Battle Royale' are presented on a background of black, with the faded 'BR' logo appearing in the background, appearing bright in red against the black. Red and black are commonly the main colours used in conventional horrors as red connotes blood, violence and anger, whereas black connotes evil, sadness and death, which both relate and connect to this movie.

House Of 1000 Corpses movie trailer.

In "House of 1000 Corpses", two young couples take a misguided tour onto the back roads of America in search of a local legend known as Dr. Satan. Lost and stranded, they are set upon by a bizarre family of psychotics. Murder, cannibalism and satanic rituals are just a few of the 1000+ horrors that await.

Jerry, Bill, Mary, and Denise are two couples out on the road in hopes of writing a book on offbeat roadside attractions. When the four meet Captain Spaulding, they learn of the legend of Dr. Satan. When the four take off in search of finding the tree that Dr. Satan was hung from, they pick up hitchhiker Baby. When their car breaks down, Baby invites them into her house. This is where the two couples meet the Firefly family, a murderous clan of bizarre people. As the family attacks the unsuspecting couples, Jerry and his friends try to survive the house of 1000 corpses and it's dark secrets.

It is a sadistic, torture-porn horror movie made in 2003 by director and musician Rob Zombie. The 2003's were the pivotal point of torture-porn horror movies, with movies released at the time including Saw and Hostel, which focused in on the killers drawing pleasure from pain, and this film does likewise. However, it is generally low budget in comparison to it's contenders at that time, and so it reached a much smaller audience. It was first due to be released by Universal Pictures, but they passed up the offer, due to it possibly having a NC-17 rating, and so was instead released by Lions Gate Entertainment. The film starts lesser known actors, mainly the directors friends, and so the audience does not know the actors from other films and does not have a pre-set expectation of them, which increases the threat in the movie.

The film trailer consists of roughly 120-130 shots. They increase in speed as you view the trailer. Around the midway point, it starts to introduce rapid successions of shots, which work to unsettle, disturb and surprise the viewer. This is amplified by the shots being twisted, tense and shocking in imagery. For example, immediately after the tv commercial of the clown, a burst of short shots is shown, which sets up the mood for the trailer  establishing it as a horror trailer. The shots in themselves are of a bloodied man being held prisoner, although the camera does not linger or focus, so it makes the viewer feel anxious and heightens the 'fight or flight' experiences. The scene itself is less than a second long.

Amongst these burst of quickfire shots, there are more normal paced shots, starting to introduce the characters. These have a blue cool tone to them to show loneliness and hopeless. Focus is placed on the faces of the characters (the four victims and Baby), and also the car as this shows the location is deserted, and there is also mist around to increase mystery and the unknown in the trailer. 

In the shots towards the end of the trailer, when we are introduced to the villains  and also in the quickfire episodes, there is more of a warm tonal range, as this symbolises blood and pain, and enhances the threat. It is also used when a villain is onscreen as to link the audiences mind in with them being a danger.

 Each shot at it's longest is still only two seconds long, so it makes for a fast paced trailer which gives the impression that the movie will be jam-packed full of events and will be exciting.

In a brief synopsis of the trailer, the first scene consists of an old television advert, showing the viewer that this is set in the past, with two clown on screen asking if the viewer likes blood, violence and freaks of nature, all of which do not fit in with the clown image of 'fun'.
This sets the theme for the trailer, one of conflict, confusion, and sadism. 

It progresses to show the victims driving along a deserted lane, then stopping to pick up a hitchhiker  Typical horror movie storyline, and it goes along with the stereotypes of the genre. Immediately after the hitchhiker is shown being picked up an inverted effect is used on a separate scene (this is one of the quickfire successions) which works to link her to strange, odd and disturbed things. The clown is shown again, and it plays on the fear of clowns, and gives the trailer a twisted sense of 'fun', followed by another inverted effect of a grave, which then links the clown in as a villain. 

The trailer then focuses on the characters being invited into the villain's 'lair' by the 'innocent' hitchhiker. It follows with scenes of one of the female victims running away and being threatened throughout the rest of the trailer. This again goes along with the stereotypes of the horror genre as the female being the weaker, more feeble character. However, this is challenged by the character of Baby, who is one of the main villains and is shown to be a strong, powerful character in the trailer. 

However, it does show her in a sexual context, luring the guys into the villain's house and shown dancing provocatively. I feel that the audience connects with the character of Baby, although she is not the typical Final Girl (virgin-victim-hero), however they do connect with her as she has a gender fluidity and contains many female traits mixed with male traits, which both attract the mainly male audience and allow them to connect with her, as according to Carol Clover's theory.

Vladamir Propp's suggestion of the '8 Character Roles' could fit here. In horror movies, there is usually a strong lead female who emerges, and eventually continues to survive. However, in this trailer, this character is filled not by a hero, but a villain  There is no particular hero to this trailer (nor the movie) as a happy equilibrium is not shown. Baby also plays the role of the donor, who provides them a location that they can stay at.

In this trailer it seems as almost the villains take the heroes place in the movie. It shows the viewer the events through the eyes of the villains, and so confuses them with a strange new look at things, and perhaps identifying with things that they may not necessarily want to identify with. The story in the trailer is shown through the villain's eyes with them playing the dominant force in the scenes, and thus the villain gets a helper, and there is also a false hero, and also dispatcher and donor, although the character's fulfilling these roles are actually evil, whereas in the original Propp theory, they would be good.

The male victims in this trailer prove to be non-hero's too, with them both being portrayed as slightly nerdy and useless, with no typical scenes of a horror movie where they are shown fighting back or defending; one scene actually shows a male dressed as a bunny rabbit crying. This gives the viewer a helpless feeling for the characters.

The movie starts to also show Todorov's forces theory. Although the trailer doesn't start with the equilibrium of everything being 'ok', it starts with things being manageable  The event follows in the trailer - the meeting of Baby. The recognition sets in once they are shown in the trailer inside the villain's home, however for the audience it sets in at a much earlier date, as soon as the quickfire clips arise. The attempt to fix the event is shown throughout the second half of the short clip; the scenes of the girl running away. Of course, the new equilibrium is not shown, as this would give the game away and the audience would have no reason to venture out and watch the movie. It instead ends with clips of an abandoned victim and a villain slurring the sentence 'I hope you like what you see'.

This trailer fits very much in with the 70's fascination with the devil and religion, with movies such as The Omen and The Hills Have Eyes being released at this time. It is also set in the past, estimatley in the 70's aswell. It also ties this satanic theme in with the modern craze of torture-porn with focus on scenes where characters get hurt in the trailer and an abundance of blood. This film for sure is part of the torture-porn horror genre.
The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
Amazingly similar to the plot-line of House Of 1000 Corpses, with the use of uneducated villains and innocent  victims getting tortured in a desolate location.

The trailer uses many moving angle camera shots, in a surreal, twisting way as to confuse and disturb the audience; these are usually during the quickfire shots. Shots in the trailer are mid-range shots, introducing us to the characters. Those shots are more still, straight-forward shots. These allow us to be introduced to the characters.

The trailer also uses more special effects added post-production than usual trailers, such as inversion effects and also mirroring effects, to double, and 'twin' the character's on-screen. I feel this is done to present to the audience how disturbing and weird this movie is, as to set up their expectations for the movie.

Stereotypes are mainly followed. The trailer is mainly shot at night, the victims are young, the villains are dirty and uneducated, the location is deserted and off the map, the lighting creates dark shadows and is low-key, with scenes of high contrast.

Transitions are used in this trailer. A key one is the sharp transition from a long shot or establishing shot to a close up or extreme close up, making the audience jump, and is in this trailer, of the villain. Transitions are sharp and snappy, keeping timing to a minimum, making this trailer only just over one minute.

The horror and homogeneity argument is agreed with, as the final girl is the purest, virginal one - a typical damsel in distress, however she, in the end, comes to the same fate as the rest of the victims.

Sound in this trailer starts off being produced by a male commenter with a deep voice, using a narrator's commentary to describe and enhance what is happening on screen. As the pace of the trailer speeds up, diegetic sound is used through the medium of dialogue to push the story along, and to also enhance the feeling of fear in the movie; in the last third of the trailer sound is mainly screaming and panicking noises. On the last third of the movie, an operatic style soundtrack is added to the background noise to further enhance drama.