Insidious 3 poster analysis

 

This is a poster for Insidious: Chapter 3, part of the popular insidious franchise. This poster has been produced to help promote the film prior to its release to help build excitement and give small hint into what will occur in the latest film in the franchise. The poster also features important information about the film; it gives the rough time the film comes. In addition to this is gives a list of the main actors in the film and other institutional features such as the directors and producers of the film. The poster is clearly one of the horror genre, this can be clearly seen by the use of a quote ‘This is how you die.’ This is written in a sans serif white text on a dark background, this allows it to be extremely visible. In addition to this, the poster features very low key lighting, this connotes evil and darkness, helping build a suspension for the audience. In addition, the main character shown is a young female; this is very stereotypical of a supernatural horror as young females are used due to their vulnerability. The use of one strip of lighting helps show the shocked facial expression on the young female represented in the main image on the poster. The setting used for the main image is on the girls bedroom, this is clear to tell due to props such as the bed and lamp. The text on the page is written in red and white against a dark background, not only does this help it stand out but the red helps connote blood and danger which are two clear conventions which run throughout the genre of horror.

The front cover is dominated by a female; she is the main protagonist in the film. A medium shot is used to show the young female sitting up in bed. This allows us to see enough of her to see her scared body position, but also still close enough to see her shocked and scared facial expressions. The fact there is only the one character featured on the front cover clearly shows she is the main character. There is no text covering the girl at all, this helps to also portray her importance within the film.

I consider the target audience for the film to be both males and females of between 16-24. My reasons for this are due to the age of the main character in the film. As she is only a teenager, people of this age bracket will be able to connect with her. In addition to this, due to the franchise being established but still relatively young, many people within the age gap of 16-24 will have heard, if not seen a previous chapter of the film, therefore knowing what is likely to occur. There are two tag lines that feature on the poster; at the top left lies ‘THIS IS HOW YOU DIE’ and the second located just above the film institution information says ‘THE DARKEST CHAPTER GOES BACK TO THE BEGINNING.’ Both of these are used to help build a dark and dramatic atmosphere due to the shocking language. The use of words such as ‘darkness’ and ‘die’ also once again help to connote the poster is advertising a horror film. The use of crediting the production companies such as Atomatik Entertainment who have also produced many other well-known films such as ‘Sinister’ allows a wider audience to be attracted if they are fans of previous films made by the producers. I believe the unique selling point of this poster is the iconic ‘Insidious’ logo. The reasons for this are due to how established the franchise is. This allows the huge fan base of the previous films to be able to easily recognise the film and know roughly what the story line will be.