The Hills Have Eyes Poster Analysis - Research & planning

The Hills Have Eyes is a 2006 American remake of Wes Craven's 1977 film of the same name. Written by film-making partners Alexandre Ajaand Grégory Levasseur of the French horror film Haute Tension, and directed by Aja, the film follows a family who becomes the target of a group of mutants after their car breaks down in the desert.

With this film being a highly anticipated film the poster had to be a pretty decent one. It is a typical horror poster and is very helpful to analyze.

• As soon as you look at the poster the first main thing which you'll look at is the girl with weird looking hand on her face. This important for many reasons. Firstly it uses the typical horror conventions with the female being shown vulnerable and in danger of the villain in the film. Straight away we can see that this is evident and that it will play some part in the film. Secondly it shows that it is a horror film with the effects used on the hand to illustrate the chilling effects it could have.
• The background used is also very weird and off putting. It gives the effect of being helpless and it blends in with the persons arm making it seem bad as well. This is good as it helps show the horror genre off.
• Next is the title which has to be looked at as well. The name of the film itself, The Hills Have Eyes, is odd in itself. This is portrayed in the poster as the words 'Hill' and 'Eyes' are bigger than the rest of the words. You wouldn't usually associate hills having eyes and this will make catch the eyes of the audience.
• The Tag line is very clever: ' The lucky ones die first'. This tag line is unique as it can be seen as postmodern. This because it is playing homage to horror films and plays on the fact that people who are going to see this film know that the longer a character dodges the villain, the worse it will be.
• As this is a remake of the original people will go see it to see if it is better than the original. This is done by keeping the same name.
• The date is quite small 'March 2010'. By making it small it shows that people will still go see it. Plus by not putting a exact date it will keep the suspense high.
• The look on the lady's face is a scared one and also looks like she's given up. This is a genre indicator showing that it is horror again.

What we can take from this poster is the use of the background. It is good because it makes it scary and makes the poster look really professional. Also the title of the film and the way they have sized it looks good and signifies the name of the film. This overall is a good poster and we should aim to make one similar to this.