Sinister- Movie Poster Analysis

Narrative

This movie poster conforms to narrative theory of Barthes' codes, the reason for this is the audience can see an image of a young girl dragging her bloody hand against a wall with a face appearing in the bloody wall behind her. There is the Enigma Code which makes the audience question why the girl is there and why she's doing what she's doing, the poster looks very creepy in the way that the bloody face on the wall is looking straight at the audience giving them direct address. This connotes that during the film a scary face may pop up at any unexpected time to scare the audience, which is rather common for the horror genre. The face looks like a male which could fit in with the tagline "Once you see him, nothing can save you." This suggests that a disequilibruim could occur in the movie because before anyone saw "him" everything was normal and dandy in life but after someone had seen "him" everything turned bad and there was nothing that could be done to get back to the equilibrium before he was seen. This means that you could apply Tzvetan Todorov's theory to the movie as this is a sign of a disequilibrium which is a disruption to the storyline, making it more eerie and spine chilling for the audience. The film title "Sinister" suggests that something threatening or portending evil is among the characters of the film and the bloody face on the wall connotes this. The colours on the poster make it look eerie, the use of an off white and cracks on the wall in the background connotes that the room could be used for things it shouldn't be, they've used a desaturated colour to make the title stand out and appear prominent to the audience so it's the first thing they look at when they look at the poster. The poster adheres to the rule of thirds because the title crosses three of the thirds drawing the audiences eyes instantly to the title of the film, and then onto the images of the girl and the bloody face on the wall. The bloody face on the wall. The face on the wall looks like it's been made out of dripping blood that seems to have come from the girls hand as she drags it across the wall, the blood is obviously red and this connotes danger and death. This fits in with the film genre as it's a horror and there is usually blood and gore because they are key genre tropes that you would usually find in a horror movie.

Audience

The BBFC (British Board Of Film Classification) has rated this film as a 15, this instantly tell me that this film is not suitable for young children under the age of 15. The mise-en-scene of the poster connotes that there will be a lot of violence due to the all blood on the wall which reveals a rather scary male face looking straight at the audience. The male face could be the one that causes all the violence in the film but the audience won't know this until they watch it, this may then make them want to watch it even more so they know and are informed, this then leads on to the Blumler and Katz theory that media products are made for four main things and one of these is to find out information. The way the girl is standing with her face towards the wall connotes that she might have done something wrong and she doesn't want the audience to see her face. This will make the audience question what she's done and then they'll want to see the film even more and the fact that she's in her pyjamas connotes that maybe she's done something wrong during the night, this then suggests that most of the violence in the film happens during the night which makes the atmosphere of the film even more scarier. The different ages that are being represented in this poster are young girls and scary middle aged men, this is because there is a young girl on the poster, she looks about 10 and she seems to be represented as a shy but violent young girl as she's got her back to the audience and she's wiping her hand on the wall which is leaving a huge trail of blood behind her revealing a face of what looks like a scary middle aged man.

Genre

From this poster it is quite clear that the genre of the film is horror, the horror genre is usually associated with good and evil as sometimes evil tries to destroy and scare the good. In this poster the evil is seen to be the bloody face in the wall because of the way it's looking at the audience, it's giving the audience direct address which will then make the poster appear more eerie. The good is then seen to be the girl as she is young and looks rather innocent, even though she has a bloody hand, this leads onto the evil destroying the good as on the poster she is walking away from the bloody face with blood clearly on her hand. This connotes that maybe she has overcome the evil and is trying to move on from whatever had happened to her in the film, however the bloody face and the tagline connotes that she'll never get away from it no matter what she does. The face on the wall could then be the antagonist as it looks like it's going to cause disruption and hurt to the protagonists in the film, however an oppositional audience might think that the young girl is also the antagonist as she has a bloody had and is dragging it across the wall then revealing the bloody face. Although the audience would't expect a 10 year old to be causing any kind of trouble, which then connotes that maybe something has happened to her during her childhood to make her behave in this particular way. The name of previous films that have been produced by the same one as this film appear on this poster, this connotes that it will be equally as successful as the previous films that have been produced by this same person, audience members who have enjoyed the films mentioned may then want to watch "Sinister" as they've all been produced by the same person. The font of the title is in capital letters which suggests that it needs to be seen by the audience, it's also got some-sort of shadow that is dripping just beneath it which could connote blood, this would link in with the image of the bloody face as that also seems to be dripping down the wall.