Elizabeth's textual analysis of a horror magazine cover

This magazine is called ‘Horrorhound’ and it goes without saying what genre it is. The masthead is in a block, bold and sharp font that goes across the top of the magazine. As with most magazines, this front cover follows the convention of having one main image across the cover. The main image is the infamous ghost from the Scream movie franchise which is of the slasher horror genre, this is the genre our horror trailer is going to be of.

The main image is of the Scream terror wielding a very sharp looking dangerous knife which reinforces the slasher genre. The big cover line is in red which is the colour of blood thus making it an appropriate colour choice. Above the main (and only) cover line in small print it says ‘The Return of Ghostface SCREAM’, advertising the release of the newest Scream movie.

The background colour looks like a fiery furnace with the colours orange, red and yellow used this makes the Ghostface look more scary and deadly. Generally, Horrorhound has stuck to the coventional horror theme colour scheme of red, black and white however purple and yellow are used, this could be why it is not as scary as it could be.

There is a barcode in the bottom left hand corner of the magazine and this is another convention used. Also in a very tiny sized font above the masthead the publication date is written and the magazine price. These details tend to be kept small so as to not draw much attention to them straightaway.

Along the left hand side of the magazine are images of features in this Horrorhound edition and not much is given away. This particular front cover is quite plain and definitely not that scary maybe it is because most of the images used are animated and this therefore has less of an impact on how scary the magazine looks.

Noticeably, Horrorhound uses the font of the media it refers to for example 'Ghouligans'. This is done so that the reader can recognise the movie instantly. This is a good technique to use on the front cover so that when a possible buyer sees the magazine that familarity of the text could influence them to purchase the magazine.