At the beginning of a horror trailer there
is usually some kind of establishing shot, however in the Final Destination 5
trailer the first thing we see is the object in which kills one of the
characters. White fade edits are used in the trailer which in not a typical
convention of horror trailers as usually they stick to black fades. As the
trailer progresses we see a woman lying on a bed waiting to get laser eye
surgery. The camera pans up from the woman’s body to her face, and then we see
a close up of the woman’s scared face, this is done to highlight the emotion in
which the woman has. A high angle shot is used to give connotations of the
woman’s vulnerability. Dialogue is used as we hear the woman say ‘a lot is
going on in my life I don’t want to miss anything’ this gives the audience the
impression that the woman is watching her back. The audience will also know
this because they would have seen the previous four films.
More white fades are used and the lighting
of the shots is extremely bright. I feel that this represents a morgue, which
therefore represents death, which shows where she will be going very soon.
Serine Non-Digetic sound is then used as the man leaves the room to go and
collect another file. This automatically gives the audience the impression that
something bad is going to happen. We then see a close-up of a monitor warning
the machine should not exceed 5.0mW as the machine reaches 5.1mW this
highlights the fact something terrible is going to happen. We then hear the woman
shout ‘is that supposed to be happening’ in a worried voice, this also connotes
the helplessness of the woman, as there is nothing she can do. The viewers then
see a close-up of the emergency stop button which is red; this connotes a sense
of danger and also connotes blood. After this we see a close-up shot of the
woman’s face denoting a frightened look. We also hear the woman screaming which
shows she is in pain highlighting her vulnerability. A red flash of the laser
eye machine is then shown; in addition this connotes the sense of danger which
is about to occur. Dialogue is then used as the woman screams ‘HELP ME!’ this
is a typical horror convention in which director’s use in films because it
shows the defenselessness of the victims.
props such as knives are used to also create the sense of death. We then see a close –up shot of a girl screaming which is also a typical convention which director’s use in films. As the title slowly fades into the screen at the end the audience think that the trailer is ending, however we then go back to another clip. We see a close-up of a woman giving acupuncture and then there is a cut to a high angle shot of a man lying on a bed getting the acupuncture, this connotes the vulnerability of the victim. As the audience have sat through the whole trailer they expect that something bad is going to happen to the man. As the camera pans down the man’s body showing all of the needles in him. We then see the legs of the table collapse and then the man fall’s face down onto the floor with the needles sticking in him; this adds a squeamish effect the audience making them literally hide their face in their hands. This is shown in the film trailer to make the audience involved.
