Insidious Teaser Trailer Analysis

Insidious is a psychological horror film directed by James Wan and was released Friday 29th of April 2011. Unsurprisingly, Insidious was entered for 10 awards. The film is about a couples son, who when he sleeps, he falls into the supernatural world and becomes lost. The Insidious teaser trailer lasts for 52 seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfxpvRRpyzE

The opening scene of the teaser trailer starts with the producers company logo, (filmdistrict) this tells you that the film will most likely be a big hit as it is produced by a big company and has produced other films like Don't be Afraid of the Dark. This will attract an audience as they may already like films that have been produced by filmdistrict.

After the opening scene of the teaser trailer, text on the screen appears and says 'from the makers of Paranormal Activity' this is there to tell you that the makers of Insidious have made another big hit film which hints that Insidious will be another hit which encourages you to see the film as the audience expects it to be a good film. Also, as the texts comes on gradually, when it does, there are loud bangs, non digetic sound, to frighten the audience and build the tension.

This is the part of the trailer when we discover there is a problem (disruption). The audience can realise this from the woman's body language and facial expressions. The medium close up helps the audience capture the expression on her face clearly. Also, all the mise en scene put together creates a dismal feeling as the colours in the trailer are all drained. This relates to Todorov's theory as the audience have realised there has been a disruption and will then want to know the resolution to it and therefore, they will watch to the film to find out what happens.


In these two parts of the trailer, this is where the recognition of the problem evolves. This trailer follows Todorov's theory about the six stages, equilibrium, disruption, recognition, climax, resolution then equilibrium again. As the woman reveals the recognition of the problem, "It's not the house that's haunted, it's your son", there are ambient creaking sounds which make the audience feel
tense as floorboards creaking relate to haunted houses, an obvious horror film convention, but one that is still effective. When the woman reveals the problem, it starts off as a voiceover, this makes the audience feel tense as they can't see who's speaking which gives it a supernatural eerie feeling. This part of the trailer relates to Barthes Enigma Theory as it partially tells you the narrative of the film. Therefore the target audience will want to know what happens to the boy, and why is he haunted? The audience will want to look for the resolution. This will make the target audience want to watch the film.

In the teaser trailer, we don't actually establish the setting until this point. As you can see, the film is set in a big old house. This is a typical convention of a horror film but still works effectively because of the connotations of big old houses. In my teaser trailer, I will include an establishing shot which is a typical but effective convention of a horror film so it will attract a wide audience.

 

At the end of the teaser trailer, it says 'everywhere april 1' this is telling the audience the release date of the film. However, the makers of this trailer were clever about this because the word 'everywhere' to me, gives me an eerie feeling because it gets you thinking, what's everywhere?

Throughout the whole teaser trailer, the colouring is very dull and drained, this suggests that somethings not right in the house and has a dark side to it. This adds to the verisimilitude as it shows the genre of film just through the colouring of the trailer. When creating my film teaser trailer, I will try to make the atmosphere look very dull and eerie.