Elizabeth's textual analysis of a horror film poster

Scream 4 (stylized as SCRE4M)

Director: Wes Craven

Writer: Kevin Williamson

The ‘Scream 4’ horror film poster is one that is very plain and simple. Recognizably, the (only) main image that is in the centre of the poster is the infamous villain.

Even if you are not familiar with the Scream franchise from this poster you can immediately tell that it’s a horror movie. There are a number of horror related conventions this poster follows, i.e. the colour scheme. Red, white and black are all colours that are commonly used in horror movie related media. Secondly, the simplicity and use of just one main image on the poster is frequently used on horror movie posters, for instance the ‘Insidious’ and ‘One Missed Call’ posters.

One Missed Call official movie poster

Insidious official movie poster

                                                  

As the entire Scream movies are all slasher horror films, it is clever how the poster has only a bit of red on it as slashers are full of bloody scenes. This was probably done so too much was not given away. It is also really good the way that the ghost face is shown from the side and the chin is made to look like a blade/knife. As this horror film is of the slasher genre, this is a smart strategy as various sharp, dangerous objects are used as weapons in this genre.

The cover line ‘New Decade. New Rules’ is in red and so is the part of the film coming out (part 4) and the films release date. The red stands out and it draws attention to those specific important details. Even though the title of the film is called ‘SCREAM’ it is stylized and therefore written as ‘SCRE4M’ which is appropriate as the target audience of the Scream franchise are mainly teenagers and young adults who would be familiar with this code-like/texting way of writing.

Last but not the least, there is a correlation between the name of the film and the ghost face as the ghost face looks like it is actually screaming. The pitch black background behind the ghost like face makes the poster look very menacing and we are left in suspense as nothing is really given away through this poster.