Comparison Of Old and New Horror Film Trailers

When I picked the trailers that I was going to deconstruct I made sure that the four trailers had or where remakes of a film or that they were part of a trilogy. This will make it easier to compare the film trailers to each other.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

I found that the newer trailer was defiantly more intense and scary than the original Nightmare on Elm Street trailer. There was a part in the second trailer when they used the same shot, but just re-filmed it. It was of three children playing all wearing white. The new trailer has more about the history of Freddy Kruger (the main character) in the trailer, whereas in the first Nightmare on Elm Street trailer there was nothing about his past and why is was haunting people in their dreams. I feel as though the Re-make of a Nightmare on Elm Streets trailer was defiantly better.

The Last Exorcism and the Exorcism of Emily Rose

The last exorcism and the exorcism of Emily Rose are two completely different films, but they are both about the same thing. I found that the trailer for the Exorcism of Emily Rose was different to other horror trailers; the fade to white was definitely something that they didn’t do in The Last Exorcism. The Last Exorcism trailer was scarier compared to the Exorcism of Emily Rose. Everything in the trailer linked back to the storyline, even the music linked in.

Saw 3D and Saw 1

I felt as thought the new saw 3D trailer was very well made. The film is in 3D so the trailer had shots of the audience watching the film and torture items where flying out of the cinema screen. It gave the viewers an idea of what the film is going to be like in 3D, as this is the very first Saw film in 3D. The Saw 1 trailer was also very good; it had all the usual conventions of a horror film.

Piranha and Piranha 3D

The first Piranha film trailer was made in 1978. The older trailer didn’t show too much detail on the actual piranha, and when you do see a piranha I didn’t find it scary, I found it quite funny. It looked really unrealistic and fake. I think that the new paranha is scarier and has more of the usual conventions of a horror film, for example the colour scheme of red. The camera shots, the wide use of close ups to show the expressions on people face, I also felt as thought there were more shots of the piranhas so it made it clear that the film was about piranhas taking over a lake. The piranhas also look more realistic and less fake as the ones that were shown in the original piranha film!

Overall I found that the newer film trailers are more realistic, the older trailers definitely set an example of how the new trailers where going to look. I think that without technology getting better film trailers wouldn’t improve. I also think that the technology is one of the most important things when it comes to making a good horror film trailer.