Analysis of Horror Trailers

There are many differences between the two trailers featured above:

Orphan: What makes this trailer particularly effective is the snippets of text that appear every so often throughout the trailer. These pieces of text are phrases picked from the actual movie. The phrases used have been cleverly selected to entice the audience to go see the film. What is also effective is how at the beginning of the trailer, it isn't immediate that it is a horror trailer. As the trailer progresses, the audience then become aware of the genre. This ties in with the plot of the film, as the family don't know their adopted daughter is unsafe. The pace of the trailer is very quite, with very few shots lasting longer than 4 seconds. The girl featured in the trailer is nearly always wearing black; a dark and gloomy colour, which is conventional of a horror trailer.

Paranormal Activity 3: What I like about this trailer is the personal feel. Lots of the shots are handheld to fit in with the theme of a home video. I particularly like the jerkiness between each shot, as it makes the audience feel a little un-nerved. The jerky movements connotate danger and lack of control. Many of the shots this time however are longer than 5 seconds, again fitting in with the filming style. This trailer is fairly simplistic. If it were any more detailed and complex it would lose it's effectiveness. The use of female children in the trailer gives an added sense of vulnerability as opposed to adults featuring.