Analysing Film Posters

This is a film poster from the film 'Orphan'. The genre for this film is horror and i will discuss how the poster reflects this genre. The image of the girl is clearly the focus for the poster, we can tell this due to the fact she is in the center of the poster and is staring directly out at the audience. The image of the girl has no light reflections on her eyes, this makes her appear dead and lifeless and therefore relates back to the storyline and genre. Her blank expression also reflects this and makes her appear scary. As she is staring directly down the camera lens it makes her appear intimidating and also activly engages the audience with the poster. By using a blank expression and making her appear non human makes the audience feel uneasy, as it makes you feel that she is unable to follow rules and morals as she has no emotions to sympathise or have compassion for other people. This is a common representation used in the genre of horror- the attacker appearing to have no emotions or remorse for their victims, this scares the audience as its unusual from the norms that we have in society and means that the attacker will seize to do as they please regardless of someone elses pain.The genre of horror often uses children as the attacker in films, this is effective as it breaks away from the norms of what society thinks of children. Society expects children to be sweet and innocent, therefore when they are portrayed as evil and sinister it shocks and confuses the audience and scares them more than if it was an adult. This is the Unique Selling Point of the film, the fact that shes a young girl, this is what the film has that no other film does and therefore they have made this the feature of the campaign. The colours are very dull and dark, this reflects the sinister element of the storyline. The girl is dressed in a typical old fashioned outfit for little girls, this is again connotes innocence but it contridicted by her facial expression. The simple use of captions leaves the audience in suspense as they havnt specified whats 'wrong' with the character, and it leaves the audience to speculate. They have used a very simple font for the smaller captions but put the title 'Orphan' in a differnt font, this makes it stand out more. The use of a scratchy point reflects the feeling of someone being trapped and it also reflects a childs handwriting due to the lack of captial letters, this again relates back to the image of a child and therefore the storyline. The use of red for 'can you keep a secret' reflects danger, it could also reflect love, but as the rest of the poster suggests that the genre of this poster is horror we know that it is related to death/ blood and danger. This colour is minimally used in the poster, and we therefore know that the places in which it is used are important parts of the trailer. The fact that she has a red scarf around her neck shows the importance of this and suggests death due to it being quite tight, it also reflects restriction and makes the audience feels awkward. They have made the edges around the poster darker and makes her stand out as she is brighter and your attention is drawn to her face. The lighting is high key and has created harsh shadows on her face which again makes her appear sinister.