Horror Trailer Analysis

This textual analysis will be focused on the teaser trailer for the film "Mirrors" Released in 2008, directed by Alexandre Aja and the producer was Alexandra Milchan, with actors Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton and Amy Smart. The Duration Of The Trailer is 52 seconds.

The trailer begins with a digetic sound of a young child's voice used to have the audience wonder how the involvement of a child will be used within the movie. Soon after the audience hear the voice we then see an establishing shot of a home in the autumn season, then a quick cut to an over the shoulder of shot of a woman opening the door revealing a child sitting on the floor talking to his reflection making apparent the child is important to the movie building up tension from the beginning of the trailer.

As the last scene ends the non-digetic music begins, which is of a fast tempo, administering a creepy feeling of anticipation to the people watching the trailer. Then follows a short shot of a man seemed to be alarmed by a sound which is made to seem like the scream heard from the previous scene, allowing the audience to come up with the assumption that the actors are all scared of something, obviously to do with the title of the movie Mirrors. The next shot shows us a blank screen with the words "Within These Walls" leaving the audience to but think about the meaning behind those words.

This continues with more short cuts showing a woman (Paula Patton) walking up some stairs looking wet, and her surroundings are dark following the conventions of horror and more blank screens with words saying "Lies An Evil" and "Beyond Our World". These short quotes have the audience constantly looking for what they mean in the duration of the trailer.

The slightly fast pace of the trailer adds to its spine chilling element which is significant in any horror trailer, and has to be developed as the trailer is ongoing. This teaser starts with a calm easy going pace, which goes along with how the trailer starts welcoming the audience with its warm feel, shown by the family house in the first shot. The trailer then builds up in pace for its crucial ending. This is shown by the non digetic sound of what seems to be a heart beat which is in sync with the quick cuts in the trailer which are all under 6 seconds to ensure that not much is revealed to the audience.

Finally the movie title appears at and then one more scene is shown as the mother of the child watches her son get dragged into the water and then a dramatic loud roar is heard as it cuts to the movies release date. This is used to create a  relationship with the audience as they can relate to the fact the woman has lost her child leaving the audinece to wonder what happened to the child.

In conlusion after analysing the many elements of the Mirrors teaser trailer, i have come to realise a number of key elements that are needed for the trailer to have its desired effect of teasing the audience in order to create a buzz about the film itself in order to excite and encourage them to watch the film, at the same time not allowing much to be revealed to have the audience not knowing much about what will happen in the film. This is one of the reasons why editing a teaser trailer is so difficult.