Jessabelle horror film poster analysis

This film poster is advertising the film Jessabelle. From first glancing at the poster it is obvious that it is of a horror film because of the use of dark, morbid colours such as grey, green and black. These are the main three colours on this poster. Also the image of the girl and the makers of the poster are trying to get across to the viewers that there is two sides to her. The protagonist; the normal, healthy side on the right, and the antagonist; the dark creature on the left. On the left the colour has been drawn from her hair, she has no makeup on and her hair looks greasy and wet to portray a scary look. Our eyes are first drawn to the right side of the girl because her skin is the lightest area of the poster and is surrounded by darkness which attracts the viewers’ attention. The colours in the center slowly darken into black at the edges which is a very effective way of drawing our attention to the girl. The poster includes the typical codes and conventions of the horror genre because the setting is plain, dark and abandoned. The lighting is low-key which gives off an eerie feel and the black implies that the antagonist is taking over the protagonist’s innocence. The tagline ‘The Dead Are Back For Life’ suggests that the demon has come back to haunt her. The typography of the title ‘Jessabelle’ is in white which stands out against the dark background, this ensures the viewer will remember the name of the film. The first section ‘Jess’ is well lit to emphasize the girl’s name (which connotes life), and the second section ‘Abelle’ fades in and out which may link to the antagonist making it paranormal. The writing at the top of the poster informs the audience the producers have previously made successful horror films named ‘Insidious’ and ‘The Purge’ which suggests that this film will also be of good quality. This poster tells the audience it is targeted at teenagers and young adults because it says ‘PG-13’ in the bottom left corner so it may not contain all codes and conventions of a Horror film because some areas the young audience will find disturbing. Finally the production credit/billing block is at the bottom, the same as all film posters and it tells the viewer who is involved in the making of the film such as fictional director, editor, actors etc. This is mainly for the industry as it goes mostly unnoticed by the audience.