Research: Trailer Analysis

INSIDIOUS:

        

Insidious an American-Canadian supernatural horror film directed by James Wan, starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne and Barbara Hershey. The film was written by Leigh Whannell which was released in theatres on April 1st, 2011. The plot follows a family who is in search of help for their son who fell into a coma after mysteriously taking a fall in the attic. The deeper the family dig to find answers, the sooner they come to know the truth of their sinister past. 

The trailer begins by presenting jumbled letters which gradually begin to rearrange themselves and spell out the title of the film, ‘Insidious’. Whilst this is occurring, a non-diegetic sound of what seems like scratching is being played over the shot, creating a sinister feel. The audience automatically starts to question the nature of the film as they begin to realise that something is not right. The title screen of the film is presented in a white font which is effective as this allows it to stand out against the black background. The colour white holds connotations to themes such as purity, hope and goodness, however, in contrast, the colour black holds connotations to themes such as death, darkness and danger. The use of binary opposition could possibly foreshadow to the audience that there is a battle between good and evil further within the film.  

The scene suddenly cuts to a middle-angle shot of a male character sitting down within a room. A diegetic sound of a male character which is not present on the screen, asks “are you ready” which the male character replies “yes". This automatically generates a lot of questions amongst the audience as they would like to know what it is that the male character should be getting ready for, therefore, making the audience want to watch the remainder of the trailer in order to found out the answers to their questions. Once the male character answers yes, the scene quickly cuts to a close-up shot of a dark brown pendulum clock which begins ticking, gradually getting louder with every tick. The non-diegetic sound of the clock ticking is played continuously within the background for a significant part of the trailer which could foreshadow to the audience that time could possibly be a key factor within the film. The scene then jumps to a dark background which reads “From the makers of Paranormal Activity and Saw” within the same font as the film title. This is extremely effective as these horror films have a positive reputation which displays to the audience, that 'Insidious' also will be a good film to watch. 

The non-diegetic sound of the clock ticking carries on playing over a montage of shots showing the male character with his family, again, reinforcing the significant of time. The first shot within the montage shows an establishing shot of a white coloured house which could suggest to the audience that the house is of significance throughout the film, also possibly implying that the house maybe the root of the families’ problems. The scene then moves on to show quick flashes of the male character in a happy state with his family which is made apparent to the audience through the use of the diegetic sound of laugher. Furthermore, high-key lighting is only used when presenting scenes of the family in order to convey to the audience that everything is currently balanced, as high-key lighting creates a lively, optimistic and positive atmosphere. The use of high-key lighting is, therefore, important within scenes featuring the family, as this clearly displays to the audience that everything is currently in balance and order. However, the next scene presents a young child falling off a ladder when attempting to climb up to the attic. The use of low-key lighting within the scene of the attic is significant as not only does it foreshadow the upcoming troubles within the film, however, it also almost distorts the sight of the audience, building up tension and fear amongst them as they feel vulnerable. This straight away is followed an over the shoulder shot of the child lying in a hospital bed, linking both scenes together which makes apparent to the audience that the character was seriously injured due to the fall in the previous scene. Diegetic sound of the character’s mother saying “he’s not in a coma, they don't know what to call it” makes the audience suspicious of how the character was injured as this hints to the audience that this incident was not an accident, however there is more to it, making them want to watch the film in order to gain answers. 

This is then followed by a montage of shots presenting quick flashes of shots, however, there is a clear difference between this and the montage shown previously. The first shot presented is a long-angle shot of the young boy slowly closing his bedroom door as if he is preventing someone or something from entering. Throughout the montage, low-key lighting is the main factor which is important as it creates a sinister atmosphere, building up fear amongst the audience and keeping them on edge as they are expecting something bad to occur further within the trailer. Tension is further built amongst the audience through the use of fast cuts between each scene. The pace of the editing starts to speed up quite fast which starts to confuse the audience as because so much is happening in a short space of time, they are not able to fully register what is taking place, making them feel extremely vulnerable. 

The next scene shows a man adjusting a specialist camera followed by diegetic dialogue of him explaining that he has set the house up with wires and cameras, which allows the audience to pick up on the fact that he is paranormal investigator, attempting to help the family. This confirms the audiences’ suspicion that something paranormal is taking place. The next scene then shows a point of view shot of an unidentified character walking down a dark corridor towards complete darkness. The use of panning is effective in building up fear amongst the audience as they don't know what to expect when it reaches the end of the corridor. The use of panning also makes the scene feel more realistic by providing the audience with the feeling that it is them walking alone down the dark corridor. When finally reaching the end of the corridor, the ticking of the pendulum clock can be heard once again following a long-angle shot of a clock against the corridor wall, suggesting that time has run out. Non-diegetic dialogue from a female investigator can then be heard saying “it’s not the house that is haunted, it is your son” before suddenly cutting to a black screen and presenting the film title ‘Insidious’ once again.