Generally, most of the best horror movies ask a question. A situation will be created in the trailer which leaves the viewer wanting to know more. A great example of this is the 1979 "Alien" trailer. The camera shows shots from the film after pulling back slowly with the camera ending on a large, alien egg. The egg then cracks emitting an eerie glow and there are many quick cuts. The trailer ends with the subtext "In space, no one can hear you scream." Nothing is clearly established in this trailer other than the fact something horrible is going to come out of that egg. We, the viewers, learn nothing about any of the characters, what the storyline is about, how the egg was found- all we know is that whatever is in the egg will frighten many people. The question the trailer makes us ask is "What is in the egg?"
What happened?
Another well known horror trailer convention is the "What happened to those children?" scenario. There are many well known films who use this for the trailer such as Quarantine, Wolf Creek and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre however one of the most infamous ones is probably The Blair Witch Project. The trailer began with the subtext "In October of 1994, three student film makers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while filming a documentary. A year later their footage was found." Then there is a couple of short takes from the film explaining how they are attempting to find them and then a really short clip of the footage they found. That's it. There is nothing else in the trailer that gives any indication of what else happens in the film. We know something happened to those kids but you have to watch the trailer to find out what.
Blood thirst
One convention of horror trailers is to 'feed' the blood thirst as it may be seen. Depending on the trailer you'll see some knives being plunged, axes being thrown, chainsaws being swung- just plain violence. The whole point in trailers like this is to promise the audience blood. Ever since the days of the cavemen humans have had a thirst for blood, to watch blood being spilled and to make entertainment out of it. In those days the entertainment was watching someone being thumped over the head with a club. Now people prefer to go to the cinema to see someone get hit on the head with an axe.
Evil Dead -
Great - is there any way you can incorporate images to make this appear more visually appealing - maybe some images to illustrate the points that you make.
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