Film Poster Analysis: Sinister

Sinister is the 2012 horror flick that focuses around the the crime novelist Elison, who in need of a new best seller discovers an unsolved case, to which he wants to base his novel on where he will figure out who caused the death of an entire family. After moving his own family into the victim's home, although upon stumbling on new evidence, things don't seem as they should be when the signs of a supernatural presence comes to light.

The film's poster shows a disturbing image of a young blonde haired girl, walking along a dirty grimy white tiled floor, as her hand is seen brushing against again a dirtied and cracked white wall, which is seen to be dripping in blood from where the girl has presumably brushed her hand. What pushes the frightening image further is the creepy clown like image that is seen through the dripping stream of blood on the wall, this sufficiently shows the genre of the film to be horror, but also the further conventions of the film, which would show a supernatural/paranormal image, due to this demonic blood casted display. The young girl's mise en scene shows her to be wearing baggy dirtied white clothing, a tracksuit almost, which resembles an outfit that a medical patient would have to wear, suggesting to the receiving audience that the girl has either been driven to be hurt by this demon like figure, due to the blood that is presumably coming from her hand, or that she is a mental patient driven crazy from the demon. Lastly, we very subtly see a rusted and unwrapped film tape lying underneath the demonic image,suggesting to the audience that we see this demon throughout film, also with the film tape being extremely old fashioned, it shows that the paranormal creature has been in existence for a long time.

The credits shown on the poster also accurately portray the correct horror conventions, with black capital bold font, the black conforming to the dark conventions a horror film possesses. The text also is shown to be faded and smeared against the wall, again conforming to the conventions of horror as it shows a distorted and damaged appearance, showing that life will not be easy at all for the main cast. We also see in bright white writing that stands of the dirty wall behind it, stating "from the producer of paranormal activity and insidious", which effectively aims at an audience, which would draw in the the audience who enjoyed those franchises.