The Devil Inside - Trailer Analysis

               

    The Devil Inside is a horror movie, it was released in January 2012 and made a net profit of $100 million. This can be seen as a huge success as it was quite a low budget movie only spending $1 million in the production of the movie. The movie is based around American people but the location is based predominantly in Rome, Italy.
 
    The Trailer:
   The trailer starts off with a black background and white subtitles. Straight away the trailer tries to show off it's unique selling point of it being based on a true story via showing a real life conversation of what the story is based around. Straight away, it shuns the horror genre when the female character is telling the police officer that she just killed three people. As soon as the conversation had stopped, the non-diegetic music begins. It is a very slow paced soundtrack and feels very gloomy.
   Throughout the movie, the camera has certain moments whereby it doesn't feel smooth but it seems as if the viewers are watching it from someone else's point of view. I feel as if the producers purposely made the camera seem a bit rough at parts to build to the suspense. There are quite a few established shots throughout the trailer to show the different locations that are going to be used within this movie. I feel as if this was a good idea as the storyline could have got a bit confusing but the audience will understand that it's an American Movie, filmed in Italy.
   The use of dialogue felt more important than the non-diegetic sound for this trailer and i feel that this is because Horror movies can be a bit confusing so it requires a simple narrative sometimes. Action movies such as The Amazing Spider-man used non-diegetic music much more as they didn't want to give too much away. The narrative it self is also shown by the live dialogue within the trailer. I feel that a voice-over wasn't used as it could have ruined the objectives that the trailer wanted to achieve as it can potentially slow down the pace of the trailer and make the horror scenes look less scary.
   The camera movement as a whole is quite slow to build suspense but then the camera cuts dramatically when something bad happens. For example, around the 1:45 mark, the camera moves and cuts dramatically when the possessed lady flies into the air.
   There isn't much to talk about as far as camera shots are concerned and I believe that this is because it isn't required in horror films or trailers. I will use Spider-Man again to show the comparison whereby there are a number of different shots and effects used and a lot of cuts and juxtapositions.
   The trailer was a huge contribution to the success of the movie as the movie itself was deemed as a huge failure only gaining a 4/10 rating on IMDB and a shocking 2.7/10 on Rotten tomatoes this stated that this was one of the worst endings ever. Yet it managed to net $100 million? This is mainly due to of the success of the trailer which in turn made the movie highly anticipated.
     The target audience for this movie is around the ages of 18-24 year old's. As this movie isn't well known like a movie like Spider-Man movie, the trailer must work harder to reach its target audience. This trailer gains the attention of its target audience by the sheer quantity of horror scenes which tells me that the horror genre approaches its target audience through content.
      The title of the movie is very plain but it emphasises the background which are upside down crosses which corresponds with one of the crazy lady's bottom lip and this makes the audience remember the trailer. The title is additionally effective because of the white background which makes the black title really stand out. Moreover, there are a number of shades of white within this background but the brightest shade of white is behind the title which also makes it stand out. this shows me how even the most plain title can leave a remaining impression.

    This movie trailer has taught me a huge amount about how important a trailer actually is to the success of a movie. This movie was in the top 10 for the first week but then wiped out completely. The first week was when this movie made the majority of its money due to the anticipation of it through the trailer but due to bad reviews, it didn't make any more which support my idea of the importance of a trailer. Furthermore this trailer really shows how to build suspense. throughout the movie, it feels quite slow but it's suddenly grips you with quick camera cuts and sudden changes of sound. This trailer has also taught me a lot about titles but it has also re-enforced the fact that the title of a trailer is normally right at the end. As a number of psychological experiments, case studies and meta-analysis have supported, we remember the beginning and ending of a piece of text and tend to forget the bits in the middle. This is obviously dependent on the size of the piece of text. This is why the title is at the end and helps us remember the movie for when it's going to come out.