'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Film Trailer Analysis

I decided to analyse this trailer as I felt it had a lot of relevance to the film trailer that I will be producing shortly. The genre of this film fits in perfectly with what we are trying to achieve for our coursework and the trailer is 2:21 long, this is good as our trailer must be 2 minutes long so we can use this trailer also to see what extent of detail needs to be in the trailer.

The trailer starts with the institutions and companies involved with the film, typically. It then quickly cuts to an establishing shot showing the vehicle on the road in the middle of nowhere, the sound in the background is quite soothing near the start, rather unusual for a horror film. There are then a couple of quick cuts between the different actors & actresses in the vehicle and then there is a bit more sound when the couple are talking, these quick cuts of the various people are to establish the characters that will be involved in the film at some point to the audience. The next clip, at 0:40 the backing track takes a dramatic turn, it starts to use a heartbeat rhythm, this has been cleverly synced with numerous quick cuts that keep in time with the beats in the background, this is used to build suspension. Numerous other establishing shots are used to now show the house were all of the horror will take place. More and more quick cuts are used and the lighting is dark, this is used to create a greater feeling of anxiety. At 1:32 the film disappears for a few seconds and the producer, directors names etc are displayed but still enticing the audience by using some dialogue (mostly screaming) in the background. The last 50 seconds or so are when the trailer becomes more upbeat and the cuts and music begin to get faster, most of the shot types used near the end are close ups/ extreme to show extent of horror in the faces of the people. As the trailer begins to gain maximum tempo it cuts to the name of the film and then shows the credits and finishes with 'Coming Soon' for the date, this will also get people talking about it as there are now more questions to be answered.

I believe this is a suitable analysis for our group as it has all the important parts of a psychological horror film, the cuts, dialogue, shot types and all other key information is there and all in the right places, to make my film trailer to a high professional standard I will need to include all of the above criteria shown.