Ancillary Product #1: Poster Research // Horror

*Ignore the watermark on the left

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (Due to be released 2015)

In this poster we see two characters who we can assume to be significant to the narrative. Conventionally horror films use dark filters/ moody lighting to create an ominous atmosphere and to instil fear into the audience. This poster does just that, framing the poster with dark lighting. From the light which escapes a doorway, the silhouette/ shadow of the woman in black stands eerily over the boy's body. The haunting image of the women as a non-physical being instantly establishes that she must be a ghost. The use of black and the shadow covering most of her face creates a malevolence purely terrifying. Thus simply lighting helps to reveal the genre of this film. The little boy is sat huddled slightly against the wall, holding a doll which is another icon of the horror genre. In the prior film the woman is obsessed with the death of her son, taking revenge and killing young children. Knowing her relation to children and how she influences them, coaxing them unknowingly to their death, we get the reading that this young boy is a character who the woman will fight to control. The fact the walls are old, weathered and damp causes us to get the reading that the setting is yet again, Eel March House. 

Black and white writing has been used on this poster, in upper case lettering to suggest violence. Red writing is a conventional piece of typography used by films to establish a film as having a horror genre because of how it connotes blood and gore. White, although implying innocence, has connotations of isolation and sets us up for a divide between antagonism and the protagonists in the narrative. This makes the use of a black background more dramatic as that in itself has connotations of evil, danger, and antagonism. 

The layout is very similar to the conventional layout of theatrical posters whereby text is used at the top of the poster (typically a tagline) and at the bottom is the title, release date, associated production companies, distributors, director etc. As for the 'tagline', this poster is slightly different in the way several are used in the centre of the woman's shadow, each line spaced down, causing our eyes to fall on the small boy. As the lines get further down, the font gets bigger for dramatic effect by emphasising violence, increasing fear and tension. This also intensifies the reality of the words: "SHE NEVER LEFT". By doing this a baleful and menacing mood is put across, conventional techniques of the horror genre.