Evil Dead II Film Analysis

            Evil Dead II is an 80’s American comedy/fantasy horror film. The film is about a man who takes his girlfriend into a cabin in the woods. Here he plays a tape which awakens an evil force that possesses his girlfriend. The professor’s daughter and others turn up but one by one they are taken over/killed.

Todorov suggested that there are 5 stages of narrative. The first is Equilibrium, which is the normality that we are first introduced too. After this, there is a disequilibrium, which disrupts the equilibrium, causing a problem with the normality of the character’s world. Once there is recognition of the disequilibrium, there is then an attempt to repair it. This ultimately leads to a new equilibrium that is different to the first one due to the events that have taken place.
             Evil Dead II follows this structure as at the start, everything is fine and ‘Ash’ has just taken his girlfriend to a random house in the woods. Disequilibrium happens quite quickly when Ash plays the tape, awaking evil forces. This disruption is recognised when Ash’s girlfriend gets possessed by an evil spirit. An attempt to repair the disequilibrium is basically Ash killing

off the zombies when they come, and trying to recite the spell that gets rid of the evil, with the help of the professor’s daughter. The end of the film, where Ash gets sucked into another world is the new equilibrium.

Within Evil Dead II, it is easy to identify the good people from the bad. The bad guys are the evil spirits trying to take the characters’ lives from them, and the good are the people who are trying to stay alive and defeat the evil spirits.
            Levi- Strauss put forward that the world is described in binary opposites, the idea that themes within stories and real-life consist of differences, contradictions and conflict. We can easily apply this to Evil Dead II. Evil characters within films are normally ugly, and in horrors normally have something to do with night time and the supernatural. These all apply to the evil spirits. Good characters are normally better looking than the evil ones, which we can certainly say that the characters fighting back definitely look better than the dead themselves. Evil characters are also considered to normally be from ‘outside’ the country/culture. The spirits from this film are from another world, so this would apply.

Within most narratives there are several character types. This idea was developed by Propp who studied many fairy tales, legends and folklores, noticing that they all had similar problems and character types. These characters are the hero, villain, dispatcher, donor, helper, heroine and the false hero. The hero of Evil Dead II is Ash, as he is on a quest to restore normality. The villains are the evil spirits as they cause the disruption and oppose the hero. In this film, there isn’t really a dispatcher as no one really sends the hero on his way, things just seem to start happening as soon as the tape is played. The donor is probably the professors’ daughter, as she gives Ash the idea of using the spell, and also translates it fully with her last dying breath. This character could also be seen as the helper. I think the false hero is probably Jake, the hillbilly, as he seems like a mildly good person at the start when he and Bobby Joe show the Professors Daughter and her companion how to get to the shack, but when Bobby Joe goes missing, he insists on all of them going to the woods to find her and throws the pages of the old book down into the cellar with one of the evil spirits.

In conclusion, Evil Dead II follows these theories quite closely. In all honesty, I enjoyed this film, although I found it slightly more humorous than scary. The effects, for their time, are pretty good, and probably took quite a lot of effort to create.

The Lost Boys Poster Analysis

Country of origin: USA
Year: 1987
Type of Horror: Comedy





                The characters in the poster are neither depicted as the victims or the killers, but the expression of the male character with light hair in the middle suggests that they may not be in peril. The similar dress sense helps to suggest that there may be a slight focus on gang culture. Mainly all the characters apart from the guy with the sunglasses on are looking directly towards the camera, which could make the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable and as if they are being watched. The guy wearing the sunglasses is different from all the other characters, as he is wearing the sunglasses. This makes him more memorable and suggests that he is the main character of the film.

                The colours used mainly within this poster are red, black and white, with variations of grey tones. The red stands out from the black and white, giving a vibrant background that screams danger and blood. The tagline says ‘It’s fun to be a vampire’ and the colours are that which you would typically attach to vampire films.

                The tagline and title and both in white allowing them to stand out from the red and black backgrounds. The font used is also a serif font and is quite slender. Serif fonts are normally associated with classier things, and vampires, as a rule, are seen as being beautiful and elegant due to their immortality. The varying sizes of the letters help suggest a sense of disorder.

                The first part of the tagline ‘Sleep all day. Party all night.’ Could be seen as relatable to quite a lot of people’s lifestyles, especially that of young adults. The ‘Never grow old. Never die.’ Is something that quite a lot of people would wish for, and so people can also relate to it in that sense. The very last part ‘It’s fun to be a vampire’ completely destroys this illusion of the audience fully being able to relate to the film, and also tells us what ‘being’ the film deals with, rather than just leaving it to the main image, which doesn’t really explain it at all.

Jeepers Creepers Poster Analysis

Country of origin: Germany/USA
Year: 2001
Type of Horror: Mystery

                The main image of the poster is an eye that is surrounded by a material that has been sown together with thick string. The skin around the eye is not a normal skin tone that we would expect from a living being. We are not given any indication whether the eye belongs to the killer or a victim, but we are presented with the idea that beings that are not totally human will feature. It also raises questions on whether the being is trying to escape, or whether it is spying on someone/something. With this poster, we don’t get the sense that it is staring directly at us, as it is looking slightly towards the side, but it could give us the feeling of something standing behind us. This goes with the mystery aspect of the film, and makes people want to watch it so that their questions get answered.

The material that is sown together has a slight leathery looking texture, and the thick string suggests a more rural type environment. The colours used in this poster are also quite earthly looking and also helps to suggest a rural setting.

The tagline ‘What’s eating you?’ is directed towards the audience and allows them to feel involved. As it is a question, the audience feel more inclined to watch the film so that they get the answer.

The tagline and the title are done in the same font and colour. The colour white stands out from the background and makes the text more noticeable. The letters itself are a mix of capitals and lower case, which gives a sense of disorder. The varying angles the letters are at and the way they are slightly broken up also helps to achieve this effect. 

Dead Silence Poster Analysis

    Country of Origin: USA
                Year: 2007
                Type of Horror: Mystery/Thriller

The main image of this poster is the ventriloquist dummy and the hand.
                The dummy’s eyes are wide open and looking straight out, which gives a sense of the viewer being watched. Green eyes also have the connotation of being more ‘mystical’ which could help to suggest that there will be some supernatural element to this film. It is also wearing a red bow tie. The use of this colour could show that the dummy is dangerous within the film.
                The hand looks to be of someone who isn’t alive because of the texture, the open wounds and the long, discoloured nail. This implies that part of the main storyline focuses on someone who is dead, but their spirit is not resting.
                Both the hand and the dummy are slightly shrouded by the darkness, which gives it an eerie feel, and could connote that everything is not as it seems within the events in the film.

The font used for the main title is in white, which stands out against the blackness of the background. The letters are set further apart than you would normally expect, and have a slight blur to them.  This helps to imply a supernatural/ghostly theme.
                The tagline ‘You scream. You die.’ is in a red font, allowing for our eyes to be drawn to it. The statement itself is very blunt and to the point, as is the font used for it.

The target audience for this film would be fans of ‘Saw’(from the text at the top), and for fans of films that are more supernatural.

SFX Magazine Analysis

The magazine’s normal masthead has been made smaller on this cover, as it is a special ‘Horror’ issue. The ‘Horror’ is much larger than the normal masthead to attract the attention of potential buyers. The font has a slight distressed nature to it.

                The colour scheme largely consists of red, white, black and a slight dark blue visible behind to the cenobites head.  The red is used to colour in the blood splatter shapes around the top. The white may have been used to connote that there is always a small sense of hope within horrors that the main character will escape whatever has been pursuing them.

                The main focus of the cover is of three iconic horror film baddies. They have probably used these particular characters as they are pretty famous and well known. Even if someone hasn’t seen the film, they more than likely know who Freddy Kruger is. The background behind has a slight mist effect. This works well with the horror genre as a lot of scenes within horrors contain mist to help ‘conceal’ the killer, and it adds a spooky feel to it.

                The font in the red boxes looks as if it has been handwritten. It also looks quite ‘scratchy’, like the type of thing you would find carved into a tree. This helps to connote the horror genre as many films have some sort of warning carved into walls/trees for the main protagonist to find.

Scream Magazine Analysis

                The masthead of this magazine cover has been made to look as if it is dripping blood, which goes nicely with the horror theme. Red has also been used, to again create the suggestion of blood, or violence or anger.  The red dot in the main cover line also shares this effect.

                The colour scheme consists of red, black, yellow and white. These colours are typical of the horror genre, with yellow being used to warn people of possible dangers.

                The images used themselves focus on people covered in blood, or monsters, such as vampire and the chatterer from Hellraiser. In the main central image, the woman depicted is holding a chainsaw with blood over her, which makes her seem quite menacing. She is also looking directly out to the audience, giving the sense that she may be eyeing and deciding whether to kill them or not.

                The tagline ‘Blood, Guts, Gore and More!’ describes things that you would normally expect to see within a horror film and therefore it enforces the fact that is a magazine about horrors. The font for the tagline is not the not the sort of type you would associate with the horror genre though, as it is quite cartoony looking. This could be to help the reader understand that the magazine is not fully about the scare factor within films, but also about the behind the scenes.       

                

Fangoria Magazine Analysis

The masthead of this magazine cover has a more sci-fi looking title, with the bends in the A. The sharpness of the corners in the ‘A’s and the ‘N’ could perhaps be representative of the sharpness of some murder weapons used within films.

                The colour scheme is made up of red, yellow, black and a little bit of white. These colours are typical of the horror genre. The masthead contains a gradient going from yellow to orange to red. This presents a feel or danger and anger, related to the horror genre and also relates to the main image.

                The titles itself has some horror related things inside it. It has ‘Fang’ which is related to vampires and werewolves and other monsters and other worldly beings, and also has ‘Gor’ which sounds like gore and obviously with a lot of films, that is the main focus.

                The main image is of Nicolas Cage, but edited to look more like a skull. The top right of his head is on fire, relating to the Ghost Rider cover line at the top of the cover. He is not looking directly towards the camera; however, he is pulling a face as if he were screaming/shouting at someone. The readers/audience do not know what he is pulling that face for, and this raises questions, which readers will want answered, and the only way to do that is if they buy the magazine.

                Additional images include iconic characters from the Hellraiser series, Daniel Radcliff and an image of some guys head in a box. People who are into Hellraiser would be into buying this magazine as it tells ‘A tale of Two Cenobites’ and readers may not be able to find that anywhere else. The article about The Woman in Black is represented by an image of Daniel Radcliff which may attract a number of different audiences/people due to the Harry Potter franchise.

                The edges of the boxes that contain the additional images are nor totally straight. There is a ruggedness about them which creates a sense of disorder and ruggedness. This reflects the disorderly views presented in horror films of people and the world around us.