FILM POSTER ANALYSIS

HALLOWEEN (1978)

Colours used – Black White and orange. The colour black relates to the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, and as a result it creates an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world. Black hides, while white brings to light.What black covers, white uncovers.The colour meaning of white is purity, innocence, wholeness and completion. White is often used in horror to symbolise the victim as it shows their innocence. Orange is used because in is a conventional colour for the holiday, Halloween. Orange relates to 'gut reaction' or our gut instincts, this relates to the thought of figuring out whom a killer is and how to reveal them. The gut feeling of knowing what may happen next and that something bad is going to happen.

The genre of the film is told through the imagery of the poster. Main image – The main image is a “evil” looking pumpkin and a hand holding a knife. This can tell the audience that it is a horror (or scary film) because it relates to the Halloween period, which is a time for scaring. The pumpkin also has what looks like fire in it eyes. Which can mean that a character may get burnt to death or someone or something dear to them gets destroyed. The knife is the biggest iconography gives away to the genre because of the lighting on it as well. There is low lighting on the image and that gives the poster a sense of mystery and also makes it quite eerie ad sincere. The knife is a big iconographic tool as it is typically in a horror film, a murder weapon.

The typography on the poster is in bold block letters so the tag line and the title is able to stand out. It is also in the colour white to contrast against the black background. The title has an orange outline as well to keep with the theme of Halloween.

There are actors mentioned on the poster but they are in small print at the bottom and not noticeable. They don’t need to be used to sell the film, even though star marketing could help get more viewers at the cinema because each star has some sort of loyal fan-base / following who watches every single film, TV, media that they are in.

This can be seen as a teaser poster as there is hardly any information on the poster and the elements on the poster instantly make the audience ask questions. “The night he came home!” Who’s he? Why is coming home? Why did he leave? Is he a protagonist or antagonist?