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.