Film Trailer Analysis- Silent Hill (Pre-June 2010)

Title of the film- Silent Hill

Director- Christophe Gans

Institution- TriStar Pictures

Year of Release- April 21st 2006

Silent Hill is a psychological horror film, which was released in April 2006 and was distributed by TriStar Pictures. After the continuous sleep walking episodes of Sharon, the young daughter of Rose Da Silva, the decision is made to take Sharon to the place only mentioned in her restless dreams- Silent Hill. However, the road to Silent Hill is anything but easy to access, and Rose creates a high speed chase between herself and a police officer only to end in a crash for them both. When she wakes up, Sharon has disappeared and Rose is at the entrance to the deserted, dream-like town of Silent Hill. As Rose begins the search for her daughter, she does not realize the terror and mystery surrounding her. Rose is led on a blind search for her beloved daughter, finding herself getting more and more entwined into disturbing past of Silent Hill, which she will never be able to escape from. The trailer for Silent Hill can be seen below:

The first thing that the audience are presented with is an enigma as an establishing shot shows the mother talking to her daughter about how when she is asleep she goes to another place and she is going to take her daughter to the place as her daughter doesn't remember, which leaves the audience wondering what this place is.  This also gives the audience a cleared understanding of the genre and sub genre as the film, as the daughter says "I can't remember" meaning that she can't remember what happens in her sleep which means that something could be psychologically wrong, allowing the audience to be aware that it is a psychological horror film.

The film trailer keeps to the rules and conventions of all horror movies as high key lighting is used in the scene when the mother is telling the daughter that she is going to bring her daughter to silent hill. However, when they get in the car this all changes as low key lighting is used and many more dark colours are used within the shots to make it more scary and to make the audience wonder what is going to happen next. The next morning, the foggy establishing shot that the audience are presented with as the mother and daughter arrive at silent hill is accompanied by non-diagetic beating sound, as the mother screams "SOMEBODY HELP!". Fog is a convention of horror genre as it has connotations of mystery and suspension, as well as the possibility of symbolising clouded judgement which protagonists in horror films usually have. The camera then pan along the scene onto the sign with says "welcome to silent hill", which is first shown in colour and then flashes in black and white with a bang to make the shot seem more dramatic. The sign has a black background, which already makes it seem evil as this represents death and evil. Intertitles on the screen, such as "which once was an ordinary town" are all in black writing and capital letters, which makes it seem like it is almost being shouted at the audience, which could make the audience seem uneasy as when you're having a conversation with someone, you don't normally shout, making the audience seem intimidated. 


Th close up on the creatures within the trailer, makes the audience wonder who they are as they are only shown for about 10 seconds. This also represents that the film is a horror film as the audience are left wondering who they are, which builds up more tension for the film and makes them want to see the film to find out who the creatures are. The mid shot of the mother holding fire makes her the main focus of the shot as she is centred in the middle. In addition to this the fire further illustrates the horror genre as it is associated with horror and hell, which could maybe mean that her daughter has been taken away and the only way her mother can get her back is to experience it. Furthermore, the fade into the close up shot of the young girl, who is the daughter shows that something is wrong due to her facial expression and it is a low angle shot making her look powerless. The lighting behind the girl is only coming from fire, making it seem like she is in danger. Direct address is used to catch the audiences attention as the girl is staring directly into the camera. Young girls have connotations of innocence and purity and therefore the fact that the girl doesn't look innocent in this shot, increases the fact that is is a horror film trailer. 

In terms of mise-en-scene, a shot is then shown of the protagonist standing in the middle of the area and she is wearing normal clothes, whereas the other character is wearing unordinary, dark, old fashioned clothing, which seems to be a pattern in all psychological horror films.   This represents the differences between the ordinary people in the trailer and the unordinary people and makes this clear to the audience. Furthermore, non-diagetic sound is used throughout the whole of the trailer however, this sound changes at the end of the trailer to a heartbeat which gets faster and faster, which infers it is a race against time to get her daughter back. This trailer follows the codes and conventions of all horror film trailers as it is based around a family, where the child is in trouble. At the end of the trailer, the title of the film is shown and when the film will be released.