Ancillary Task, "Wrong Turn 3" film poster

Ancillary tasks: Analyse a Movie poster.

Here I am analysing the poster for the horror film, “Wrong Turn 3”. I will be looking for the use of layout, fonts, colours, images used, language, representation and conventions. The dark colours of this poster can indicate vulnerability, darkness, terror and unawareness. This can draw the audience in and make them want to know more about the film, therefore making the poster appeal more. The layout of the font being right in the middle of the page can be a sign of its vulnerability, or in this case, the vulnerability of the victim characters in the film. The characters are also in the primary optical areas of the page, with the mutant man in the corner, and the victim on the right hand side of the page, even though the left hand side is said to be the more dominant side, in the case it is the right who is the most dominant. The tree right in the centre of the picture shows the separation between the victim and the antagonist. Perhaps because they are both from different worlds in terms of the way they look and behave. It also tries to show that the mutant cannibal is hunting the female victim and she is hiding behind this tree.

The route of the eye follows across the page towards the girls face, it the scans down the face diagonally over the title towards the mutant cannibal man, then the terminal area shows the sentence, “what you don’t see will kill you”. The image shows that the mutant cannibal is hunting the female victim and she is hiding behind this tree. It shows a close up of the victim, to help the audience see her emotions, and then a long shot and deep focus of the man running towards her carrying the axe. Typical conventions are shown here. The make-up shown on the girls face indicates that this is a horror film because of the blood, and the blood stained clothes etc.  The props with the axe shows this could also be a horror film and you can noticeably see the male character doesn’t look particularly all human. Typical representation of horror films is shown here, as they are using a female character as the victim, and a male character as the antagonist. The size of her in comparison to the male character shows that perhaps she can fight for herself, and could possibly come out on top as the ‘final girl’.

The font used for the title shows the writing as sharp and jagged edges, almost like shards of glass or knives, or other sharp objects that are associated with horror films. The text also has a number of cracks through indicate that it is broken and/ or sharp, which can point out the danger of the film. The location of the font being right in the middle of the page can be a sign of its vulnerability, or in this case, the vulnerability of the victim characters in the film. The “Wrong Turn” shown in white can signify its innocence, they took the ‘Wrong Turn’, type of innocence, but then the “UNRATED” and “3” in red signify blood or danger.