Analysis of a horror trailer

I am going to be analysing a trailer for the horror movie 'Possession'.  This trailer is recent and the movie was only released less then 2 months ago.

I have not watched the movie my self however the trailer does make it clear what the movie is going to be about without spoiling the plot.

This movie is not exactly distinct in any way as the idea of possession has been done many times before.  One of the most well known examples of this is 'The Exorcist'.  Also as is very common for possession movies, is that a little girl is the target as it invokes more emotion with the little girl being the most innocent.  The trailer show with superimposed text that the movie is based off a true story however it is doubtful that these events occurred in the real world on such a large scale but those more religious or weak willed will be more afraid because of this.

 The horror trailer seems to follow the general codes and conventions for a horror movie, particularly to the possession style sub-genre.  There is a supernatural force that slowly takes over it's host and becomes more apparent the longer they are possessed.  A religious figure or man who researches deity's will identify the demon who has possessed the target.  Eventually the demon starts to become uncontrollable and as is with a trailer it ends so that you'll have to watch to movie to see the conclusion.

It is hard to relate narrative theory to a trailer as it is not the whole package however some analysing can be done.  Todorov's theory can be applied to this trailer to a limited extent.  At the start of the trailer which we assume is also the start of the movie, the father and his daughter are fooling around, having a fun time.  The equilibrium is then disrupted when we hear that the box was not intended to be opened and the little girl opens it.  We can also see this when the girl says herself that she feels funny.  We do not know whether this equilibrium is restored or not and would need to watch the movie to find out, it is not certain as is normally the case with horror movies.

Propp's theory can also be related to this to identify certain character roles.  The villain and the dispatcher is probably the demon.  The demon is the one controlling the girl and is the reason the father is trying to help her.  This leads to the hero and princesses father, the father of the possessed girl who must identify the villain and stop it from killing the princess, the little girl.  The man in the university and the Jewish people seems to be the helpers providing knowledge on the situation to help the hero defeat the villain by knowing more about him.  There doesn't seems to be a false hero at least from what the trailer shows and the donor may be the Jewish people who may have gave the man the book to perform an exorcism or it could also be the hospital to look at the girls medical condition.

Levi-Strauss' theory is about binary oppositions and some of these are presented in the trailer, particularly those in conventional horror films.  A few examples would be.

• Religious vs Anti religious
• Natural vs Supernatural
• Good vs Evil
• Science vs Magic
• Control vs No control

Bordwell and Thompson's theory relates to the trailer as the trailer gives a clear series of events that occurred to get to the next shot.  Our questions are answered throughout the trailer through the use of editing techniques to show us a series of events that occur in a small space of time.  We see that the girl wants to buy the box, we see the father agrees, we then see that the box wasn't intended to be opened, after that the girl opens it which results in her feeling weird the next day. This is continuity editing and is vital for viewer to understand what is going on in the movie.  We know the girl has been possessed by the title of the movie and by seeing the series of events in time and space that led upto where the girl became possessed.  We see that it was the box because we get a clue in the shot before she opens it and after she opens it she says that she feels funny indicating to us, the audience that something is wrong after she opened the box.

'Halloween' in relation to the 4 narrative theories

Tzvetan Todorov
Todorov's theory explain how a story will begin with a state of equilibrium between two opposing forces.  This equilibrium is then disrupted by some event that then sparks a series of events to restore the problems and restore order to the world of fiction.  This theory is the base of the classic Hollywood structure.

In relation to Halloween it doesn't explain the narrative structure of the story too well as it does not really explain how this equilibrium has been disrupted.  It mainly just says how the story has a beginning where everyone is alive and happy.  The equilibrium being disrupted by the bogey man escaping sparking a chain of events eventually resulting in the ending where the equilibrium wasn't fully restored as the bogey man was still alive.

Vladimir Propp
Propp's theory was based off the 100's of folk tales he read resulting in him identifying 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions.  The 8 character roles he identified were the villain, the hero, the donor, the helper, the princess, the princesses father, the dispatcher and the false hero.

Being based of folk tales, it is hard to define these roles to Halloween or any more obscure genre like horror.  This is genrally because horror doesn't like to stick to the general codes and conventions that a more conventional genre like action does.  Obviously the hero is the girl that lives at the end and the villan is the bogey man.  The doctor is a helper as he is trying to find and stop the villan throughout the movie, the also saves the girl at the end.  Even with this information though it still only tells us that there are these roles that the characters play.  It is not in depth still.

Claude Levi-Strauss
Levi-Strauss looks a bit more deep into the narrative structure by looking at a narrative in terms of binary oppositions.  Instead of 1's and 0's we look at oppsites such as good and evil or light and dark.  These binary oppositions can genrally be associated to particular genres or multiple where good and evil can be applied to many genres but more obscure ones like natural and supernatural genrally stick to sci-fi and horror.

This theory better explains the story of haloween and can easily be tied to its horror genre through the binary oppositions that occur.  A couple of examples for this would be natural vs supernatural as we see at the end, the boogie man was not human.  Light vs dark because we only saw the murders happen at night where evil is genrally at it's strongest.  Looking at all these binary oppositions we can easily piece together a good idea of what the story is about.

Bordwell and Thompson
This technically isn't a narrative theory but does put together some interesting ideas.  In their book "Film Art: An Introduction" they defined narrative as "a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occuring in time and space".  In a way, this is similar to Todorov's theory but on a much more open and deeper level.  The theory defines where the event took place, when the event took place and what span of time the event took place over.  It explains how narrative will manipulate our awareness of time and place though techniques such as flashbacks or jumps between place and time.

This theory also can explain the narrative of halloween on a much deeper level and breaks down the plot of the story.  Right from the start of the story when we see the vision of the boy walking up the stairs, we see he is holding a knife, we immediatly know he is going to murder the occupents of the house and come to a shock when the mask is taken off and we see the kind standing there with the knife.  We know that something is wrong.  The movie then makes it clear that time has passed and that the man who escaped the asylum was the same boy who murdered his family.

Conclusion
Halloween being a horror movie means that a deeper analysis is required when looking into the narrative for the story.  This is why explaining the story's equilabrium or assigning character roles is not enough to analyse a more obscure genre like horror.  A deeper look is required which is why the last 2 theories are better suited to explain halloween.

My favourite horror trailer

This is one of my favourite horror movie trailers.  The reasoning for this is that the special effects look really well done especially for the time it was made (1984).  It keeps the viewer alert throughout the trailer with lots of cuts keeping their attention and making them want to watch the movie. It also uses continuity editing showing the audience small previews of how the story line unfolds except the conclusion.  The shots where the teenagers were getting murdered in their sleep looked awry and mysterious.  People wanted to know how this was happening which meant they had to watch the movie.  The special effects are pulled off well to, like the girl who was levitating on the ceiling.  It was hard to tell if there was anything suspending her at least at first glance which is what really matters.