Film Trailer Analysis- Insidious (June 2010-Present)

Title of the film- Insidious

Director- James Wan

Institution- Momentum Pictures

Year of Release- September 14th 2010

The second ‘Psychological Horror’ film that I am going to analyse is ‘Insidious’.  Analysing this film trailer will give me a better understanding of what I need to do to ensure that I include everything I can to attract my target audience when I create the trailer for my film. Insidious was released on the 14^th September 2010 and was distributed by Momentum pictures in the UK and FilmDistrict in the USA. The story is based around a family who are trying to help their son as he fell into a coma after falling off the ladder in their attic. However, Dalton’s parents were unaware that there is much more to this than their son being in a coma and this endless sleep meets the eye as they explore the paranormal and rediscover their past, which is the key to getting their son back to where he was before he had the accident in the attic of their own home.

This film successfully follows the codes and conventions of all horror films. The shot of the title at the beginning of the film has a black background to represent evil, which is then followed by the protagonist within the film, who is the first person we see represented and he is asked if he in ‘ready’, in which he replies ‘yes’. It is a family that is represented within the film and at the beginning the parents are happy and smiling and the children are also happy, which is represented through their actions. However, this changes when their son falls down the ladder in the attic of their house. The ticking noise at the beginning of the film may have meant that something was going to happen and building up tension to make the audience want to watch more as they are more intrigued to see what was going to happen next. The film trailer doesn’t actually show what happens to the son when he falls down the ladder but skips to him lying in a hospital bed, which makes the audience wonder what is wrong with him. The mother then says “they don’t know what to call it”, they don’t know what is wrong with their son but because we have seen earlier on in the trailer that he had an accident, we are aware that it has something to do with this.

The mise-en-scene used in the trailer has an effect on the way the audience understand the film.  The setting, as with all horror movies is set in a house and the props used are household items; ladder, baby monitor, and a rocking horse, which makes the film even eerier as these are items that are typical of any family household, which gives the trailer a sense of realism as it could be anyone and it allows the audience to put themselves in the characters position.  The sound used has a massive effect on the ‘scary’ and ‘frightening’ atmosphere as diagetic sound is used when the mum hears whispering and then a yell through the baby monitor, which makes it clear to us as an audience that the child isn’t alone in the room. There are also moments of non-diagetic sound within the trailer when intertitles are displayed on the screen which creates a sense of interruption, such as something supernatural interfering with the film. The constant ticking as it gets faster throughout the trailer, resembles that the clock makes it seem that the trailer is leading up to something or they are running out of time to get their son back to who he was before he had the accident. Later on within the trailer, the pace speeds up and creates an almost irritating effect for the audience as they are unsure of what is going on, therefore created edge and suspense.

Most of the scenes within the film have low- key lighting to represent danger and make the audience wonder what is going to happen next. There isn’t much lighting throughout the whole of the trailer because the main location is a house, which is the antagonist and therefore the antagonist is always present throughout the trailer, meaning that low-key lighting will be regular which re-enforces the scary atmosphere the trailer emits.  Insidious can be applied to Todorov’s narrative structure. At the beginning of the film, the audience are presented with an equilibrium that shows the family living in their home with their new baby and children. We are then presented with disequilibrium as the son falls down the ladder and there is something supernatural that is disturbing the way he is acting and affecting everyone around him.  The new equilibrium occurs in the trailer when the parents are told that their son is haunted and not the house, which they initially thought was the issue. “It’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s your son.

Although at the beginning of the film, we know that the genre is horror, it becomes a lot clearer that as the film trailer goes on, the sub-genre is ‘psychological’ horror, which is instant when the child has an accident as he falls off the ladder and something supernatural is disturbing him.