Length: 2.26
Genre: Horror
Narrative: A family enter a house they inherited from family; they find themselves trapped inside with 13 ghosts. They then have to do what they can to get out of the house alive.
Target Audience: The predominant audience would be teenagers (16+), as they enjoy watching horror films.
Music: The music starts 0.20 seconds into the trailer and is slow and only played gently in the background, while showing a normal day for a family who are being told about the house they have inherited. This helps keep the trailer and audience calm. However as the pace is built up the music gets louder, faster and more upbeat. This helps to gradually build up the tension making the trailer more intense. This makes the audience more excited and thrilled. Like ‘Drag me to hell’ the music suddenly stops at the end of the trailer, leaving the audience in suspense.
Editing: There are approximately 105 shots in the trailer. The pace of the trailer starts off fast, gets slow then gets fast again. This is not conventional as most horror trailers which usually start off slow and get faster. They could have broken this convention to try and be unique and make their trailer different to others. The length of the shots at the start are about 1 second, they then increase to 3 seconds and finally by the end drop again to half a second. The extremely short shots at the end are effective as because the pace is so fast and the most intense parts are shown, the tension is extremely high.
At the beginning of the trailer a lot of fade to blacks are used as they allow the shots to move smoothly also keeping the trailer smooth and calm. However as the pace increases, only straight cuts are used to keep the tension and intensity high, keeping the audience interested.
Production Information: Warner Bros Pictures shown at 34 seconds & Dark Castle Entertainment shown at 36 seconds. ‘Warner Bros Pictures’ are a very well known, high-quality production company. Therefore this could attract viewers as people who are fans of other films produced by ‘Warner Bros Pictures’ may be attracted to watch this. It would also represent the film as high standard, like other films produced by them.
Voiceover: A male voiceover is used and says “This halloween, the only thing worse than being trapped inn a house with a ghost if being trapped in a house with 13 ghosts”. This helps to tell the narrative as well as setting the tone for the film.
Credits/Intertitles: Towards the end of the trailer the numbers 1 -13 appear as intertitles, in a big, red font. In between each number is a about half a second snippet of highly intense parts of the film. This part of the trailer is the most intensifying and scariest and is shown at the end to leave a lasting impression on the audience. The film title ‘Thirteen Ghosts’ is also shown, re enforcing it so people will remember it and “Halloween 2001” is shown after.
