Film Poster Analysis - The Unborn

This poster conforms to the narrative theory of Barthes’ codes, the reason for this is in the poster we can see the girl looking into the mirror and there is a boy looking back at her. There is the enigma code which makes the audience wonder why the boy is there. The poster looks very eerie; there is a tag line which establishes a general idea of film plot. The title suggests that the film is going to feature a child of some kind whilst also providing a indication to the audience what the narrative of the film is.  The colours which are used make the poster look dark, cold and chilling. Instantly the audience will identify that this is not going to be a pleasant film due to harsh tones and frosted glaze on the poster. Tzvetan Todorov’s theory does conform to the poster because there is a sign of disequilibrium which shows there is a disruption/something has happened. Vladimir Propp’s theory of folk tales does not conform to the poster because there is no evidence of who the hero is. Claude Levi Strauss’s opposition’s theory conforms to this poster because there is light vs. dark, male vs. female and good vs. evil.

The generic elements of this poster shows us, the mise-en-scene as the little boy is wearing a shirt, with a jacket over it and he looks almost like a ghostly figure in the girls mirror. This is a clever use of character placement as the audience will instantly feel a sense of fear as people expect to see their own reflection when they look in the mirror. Also, this image could imply that both these characters are connected in some way and that the ghost may be haunting the female in order to survive, hence the slogan.  The girl is wearing her vest top but is in her underwear this shows a sort of sexual attraction towards her. The setting is in the girl’s bathroom, this setting makes it recognisable that it’s a horror film because of the colours that are used, the way the boy’s face is and how she can see his reflection in the mirror. The horror genre is associated with villains and victims, in the poster the villain is the boy and the victim is a girl, who is the main character as this is one of the elements of a horror genre, on the poster we see a girl with her back towards us and she is looking in the mirror this tells the audience that she may be the victim. There is a boy staring back at her. The style of the poster uses a long shot of the girl standing in front of her bathroom mirror, the lighting is low key this goes with the feeling of the poster when the audience look at it. 

The title is in the centre at the bottom of the page, it is in medium font but it does not draw the audience’s attention as the picture takes up most of the right hand side of the page. Plus it has “the” written in the centre of the letter “O” and this is in small font this attracts the readers attention as they would look at the picture first then see the letter “O” and see “the” written inside it then they will know the title of the film, it would either be appealing to them or not appealing.

The different ages that are being represented are young children and teenagers. The reason for this is because there is a little boy and a teenage girl in the poster. The genders that are being represented are both male and female. By looking at this poster we can tell that this is going to be a horror/supernatural film. The ethnicity that is being represented in this poster is young attractive looking girl who has a dark complexion and a reflection of ghostly figure (a boy) who looks pale with dark circles under his eyes.

The target audience for this poster is a larger male audience as the attractive image of a , the reason for this is although there is a little boy in the poster we can tell that it will not be suitable for young children because of the way he is represented as a character. Moreover the girl looks like a teenager so it will attract this age group to go and watch this film. The tag-line is positioned clearly and is also next to image of the character that is portrayed to be evil. Initially the poster suggests it is (the agonist). Its positioning makes the tag-line more from the genre of a horror. It’s obvious, revealing its relevance and importance shown through the images and the relating to the genre. The font used for the tagline is mise-en-scene used. For example serif making it look more ‘old fashioned’ possibly the setting is eerie and the people suggesting it’s more ‘haunting’. The tagline also have certain make-up to portray a cleverly anchors the tile as it relates the word ghostly effect. ‘unborn’ and the word ‘living’. Also included in this is the word ‘Evil’, this may catch the audience’s There are no obvious actor’s names attention and appeal to certain people. on this poster, suggesting they aren’t very well known. 

 The image reinforces for the actor’s names to show their the genre of a horror as introduction to the film business. we can see the main Furthermore, the fact they have characters face showing chosen not to show the actor’s fear as she looks into names this suggests the movie is the mirror at a ghostly based on the storyline, therefore image of a boy promoted by this and appealing to setting of the image audiences looking for this. along with the character’s costume The atmosphere of the poster suggests the event is suggests that the target audience unexpected. would be of the age of 18, this is emphasised by the ‘horror’ genre The title suggests the images e.g. the boys ghostly face movie genre is a horror. It gives the the poster’s design is appropriate audience an for the genre as the props used and impression that the rooms design are supposed to movie is fictional look dated and ‘old fashioned’, anchoring the fonts they’ve used The font has been along with other elements displayed edited to reveal a e.g. the scratched effects and the sinister atmosphere, The distributors label is presented on the poster fogged mirror emphasising on the which may be beneficial and promote the movie genre suggestion. They further as some people might recognise this and have chosen to use a wish to see the movie as they know of their ghostly font with a reputation with possible successful movies, white glow to help the continuity of genre yet again.