'Sinister' Trailer Analysis

I chose to analyse the trailer for a new Horror Movie called ‘Sinister’ because I feel as a trailer, it successfully does its job of scaring the audience and making them want to see the film.

It begins with a shot of the house at night time and a voiceover from a news story explaining how ‘a local family was murdered.’ We then cut to an image of the family, with one of the children in the photo being circled in red with a question mark, suggesting unlike the family, she wasn’t murdered. It also cuts quickly to shots of a pagan symbol (which we later learn is important in the plot of the movie) and also to a child’s drawing of the family being hung from a tree. The child’s drawing adds a sense of shock to the trailer, as children are meant to be innocent, and for them to be drawing this type of subject matter unsettles the audience.

The words ‘9 Months Later’ then appear on the screen, and we see a shot of the same house, however this time in broad daylight and a moving truck out front. The contrast between the shot of the house in daylight and the one in darkness shows that time has passed, and also the darkness in the previous shot connotes evil and bad, which was obviously relevant.

We then see a series of shots of a family moving into the house. We learn that they had to move to this house because of money issues and also ‘the new story he’s writing is here.’ Everything seems happy and normal with the family as they do typical things such as sit around the table together for dinner and the Dad putting the young daughter to bed and the husband kissing the wife. The conversation has a positive tone as he says how ‘He’s gonna write the best book anyones ever read.’ And  he ‘has a really good feeling about this.’

Up until this point in the trailer, there had been music quietly in the background. But here is suddenly stops, and we are left with a drum beat and then more slow building music. This builds tension as the scene shows him climibing into the attic and discovering an old box of home videos left by the previous owner. The words ‘From the producer of Paranormal Activity and Insidious’ come up on the screen- both are very successful movies. We see a series of jump cuts of clips of him setting up the projector and eventually playing the home movies. As the home film plays a movie of the previous family in the garden playing, and a girl on the tyre swing, we see the man’s reactions as he watches. It suddenly cuts to a short quick clip of the family being hung from a tree. The music sounds like a tape breaking at this point and becomes loud, shocking the audience. We know as an audience that the family that was hung is the same one in the child’s drawing at the beginning. The man ­reacts to what he sees and suddenly jumps up, knocking the projector over.

It cuts to a clip where he is discussing with a police officer whether he thinks these are a series of serial murders. At the same time we are shown a clip of a truck in the 60’s being set alight with the family inside. A loud scream is played at the same time, adding to the shock of the clip. We then see an extreme close up of the mans eyes, showing his emotion as he watches, the reflections of the flames shown in his glasses. There is then a small montage of different clips throughout all the home movies, showing the pagan symbol that is found in them all. We discover this is related to the pagan deity named Bahgul, who supposedly eats and possesses the souls of children. This imagine adds a sense of supernatural to the trailer, which so far has been shock and mystery. The music builds up as we see a clip of a young boy climb into a pool, and then it stops suddenly leaving a high pitched noise. This again, is used to build suspense. As this happens, the boy transforms in the water and turns around, where his face is distorted into someone else. Suddenly the words ‘Once you see him…’ are shown, and then he zooms into a clip where he finds Baghul hiding in the bushes- with the same face the boy transformed into, showing how he was possessed.­

Knowing that the bushes in the photo are in his garden, he takes the photo over to the window and holds it up. The garden is mainly pitch black, apart from an area in the bushes which is lit up. As he takes the paper away, we see Baghul standing in his garden. The music jumps suddenly and it scares the audience.

“Baghul lives in the images themselves, and they are gateways into our world.” Thes words are echoed over and we see a photo of Baghul on the computer screen. As the man looks away, Baghul turns his head. Building up to this point, the clip if cut really quickly along with a drum beat, building suspense.

“Nothing Can Save you.” By using the word ‘you’ the trailer is talking directly to the audience making them feel as if they are involved with the story. “Children exposed to the images are particularly vulnerable”. At the same time we see a clip of the man’s daughter watching the movies…

In the next clip we see how his daughter painted a picture on the wall of the house, of the girl who previously lived there and went missing, Stephanie, the girl who was on the tyre swing at the beginning. The trailer begins to put all the pieces of the puzzle together and we slowly begin to understand what is going on. In the next clip we see the man walk down a hall, and then it cuts to a cardboard box, and then back him, then to the box etc, and then suddenly, out of the box, his son jumps out, screaming, as if he’s possessed, this shocks the audience.

The man then sets fire to the home videos, and we see a close up of the tape burning, suddenly there is a montage of different clips of the family running and packing up, as a voice over says to ‘Grab the kids, pack the car, they’re getting out of there.’

The trailer is then edited as if it is on one of the home projector tapes, and we hear the tape rolling and clicking. Between every click, a diferent clip is shown. And the clicks become faster and faster, building suspense and scaring the audience. Examples of the quick clips we see are them screaming, a child dragging an axe along the floor (The shot of the axe being dragged is at a tilted angle, adding to the madness at this point), the little girl laying in bed with a drawing of Baghul on the wall as she stares at some presence in the corner, but the clip cuts before we can see who it is. Another clip is someone walking down the hall way, the walls covered in blood,carrying a body. We don’t see whose face it is, and the only light source is coming from the far end of the hall, so everything is in shadows. This adds a sense of mystery, there is also a blue filter over the shot, making it seem more scary.

As the clips build up and become faster and faster, there is a drum beat getting faster and louder. Suddenly it stops, at a point where the man looks at lots of children, all with distorted faces like Baghul. The music is silent, building suspense. They all lift their fingers as if to say ‘Shhh.’ And then suddenly Baghul jumps out at the camera and there is a loud scream in the background. As the ending to the trailer, this will shock the audience, and leave them wanting to see more, as the build up of suspense and adrenaline is effective.