Oculus trailer Analysis

The music used in this trailer is a mixture of ticking noises and distorted sounding stings all these sounds are either very sharp and screechy or very low and bassy, they create an atmosphere which is cold, scary and jumpy which puts the viewer on edge. This music clearly represents the genre, horror.

The dialogue in the trailer is mostly questions or statements that raises questions; for example, the first thing said in the trailer is “hello again, you must be hungry?” this is said to a mirror that was covered up, the same person then goes on to her brother to say “I found it” “we only have a few days, to keep our promise and kill it” this gives a mysterious and spooky feel to the film because they are in danger by something not even human which raises a lot of questions for the audience.

There is no voice over used for this trailer, by doing this and having only dialogue from the film, I feel that this gives a more realistic feel which also draws you in more because the people in the film sound like they are directly talking to you.

The expression and moment of the characters in the trailer show well that the film is a horror, because the characters look scared mostly as they are running away from something or are curled up in a ball crying as if they are hiding from someone or something. We also see the faces of people who have been possessed by the mirror or have been created by the mirror as an illusion; these people have glassy, grey looking eyes (that represent the mirror) and have a disturbing look about them.

The Lighting in this trailer is cool toned, and the props and décor is mostly natural earthy colours or white. This gives a cold and creepy atmosphere. But when it is evening time the lights flicker and the bulbs break, leaving them in darkness or with very little lighting, this represents the scary stereotype that comes with the horror genre that is everything scary come out at night.

The main prop in this trailer is the mirror and we see the mirror in plenty of pictures along with its victims, this makes it apparent that the mirror is something to be scared of. In this trailer it is made clear that you only see what the mirror wants you to see and a small example showing its power is when the woman is eating an apple puts it down next to a light bulb, we see her almost pick the apple up again, but then we hear the breaking glass and see her pulling glass out of her bleeding mouth.

The pace of the shots in the first half of the trailer are quite long and slow because at that point we are picking up some the story, learning who some characters are and are just listening and seeing information so that there is a story line for use to follow. Then in the second half of the trailer the pace picks up, the shots are fast and short which represents panic, danger and fear.

In the trailer we see a lot of point of view shots, which are often reflections in the mirror. When the girl is talking to her brother we see a lot of shot/reverse shots because it shows their expression, which in this trailer is mostly distress or crying which strongly represents the genre because they are scared.

The Shots in this trailer are mostly long shots and close ups, this allows us to see the persons full body and then their face and this tells us where they stand, whether they are a threat to the other characters or if they are one of the ‘good guys’ we gather this from their posture, from the long shot and expression, from the close up.

The depth of field in this trailer is all mostly short because that makes everything seem more up close and personal, it makes the trailer seem more scary and jumpy because whatever it is that is a threat to you or is scaring you is right in front of you and not 20 feet away.

Close ups are also used to tell us that something is important or is about to go wrong, for example when the woman put the apple down next to the light bulb in close up we automatically know that something bad is going to happen, in the close up you see her reach for the apple so you think she’s safe but then it cuts to a different shot, that’s when you hear the glass, the close up shots made you think something was going to happen before it did which puts the audience on the edge of their seat which is an important aspect of a horror.