INSIDIOUS TRAILER ANALYSIS

Insidious is a 2011 American  supernatural horror film. The story centres on a couple whose son inexplicably enters a comatose state and becomes a vessel for ghosts in an astral dimension. The movie as a whole has a very powerful story line as it skilfully manipulates the audiences emotions, giving it a greater degree of impact. This is firstly done by the characters used in the film. The story is based around a modern family whose lives completely change by unpredicted sudden events. The fact that a child, commonly associated with innocence and vulnerably  is what is behind the family all of a sudden corrupted lives, makes it much more thrilling as it is the last character the audience would ever associate evil with.

The trailer opens up with various shots of an ordinary family living their daily lives. However, it quickly changes in colour and intensity as a dark, gloomy filter is added to the camera lens to intensify the horror genre. Additionally, there is common theme throughout the characters' clothing of the colour blue. This could be because blue has the connotation of the supernatural, therefore it is used to convey to the audience the theme of the film. In contrast to this blue tint, the characters are given a very pale appearance which once again gives of a very eerie effect.

In terms of the cinematography, camera shots such as closeups and two shots are used to show the characters' facial expressions when sudden action takes place. This allows the audience to experience the same emotion of the characters and makes the film much more thrilling. Tracking shots are also used for example when one of the characters is going through a dark corridor. This is taken through a POV shot to increase the anxiety of the audience as the idea of walking through a completely dark corridor with no vision creates fear of the unseen. The filming technique of the whole trailer is very effective as it starts off very slow introducing a normal suburban family and steadily increases in speed and action.

The trailer for 'Insidious' represents a middle class family of various ages and genders from a young boy to parents to grandparents. The casting of this film is very clever in terms of how it uses a child as the main character who becomes consumed by greater evil. The dominant ideology of young children is that they are very sweet and innocent there the film effectively challenges this and brings fear to its audience by showing evil can come from the least unlikely things. Horror Films consistently play on things society would class to be "safe" such as children's dolls as shown in the film  Chuckie. This takes them out of their comfort film and raises the tension.

The reason why we have chosen this film is because of how it manages to manipulate the audience's emotions and reactions which leaves them constantly wanting to know more. The fact that it challenges vary dominant ideologies as previously stated, leaves the audience on the edges of their seats which is something as a group we will work towards  in order to make our trailer engaging and thrilling.