Initial post - The Strangers Trailer (2008)

This film is set in an isolated house in the rural environment of a forest alongside a lake, thus offering more opportunity to create a sense of isolation or entrapment. The shot we get of the house, with no other noise than that of nature and animals, is at night, taking us away from our safe-haven of daylight.


After the shot of the house we are introduced to the two main protagonists, the couple. We know they are a couple due to the petals on the bed and the closeness between them. To show the closeness between them, a lot of close-up's are used and particular language is used between them. The constant sound of wildlife and nature is there to remind us they are completely isolated.

It is common in horrors to have a bang or a loud noise come from an unknown place to trigger danger or disruption; in this case it is a loud bang from outside, when they believed they were alone.A classic binary opposition of horror is used when there is a shot of a swing set swinging back and forth with nobody even near it and the sound of the creaking playing over the top. This innocent invention created for the enjoyment of young children somehow, when put in this situation, creates fear in our brains.


The writing coming in and informing us it's 'inspired by true events', which creates more fear within the viewer. Darker colours are used for the writing and a fade in fade out technique is used. Point of view shots are used when the couple are looking out the window at an empty space, showing the vulnerability of the protagonists. The shot that introduces the attackers is a long shot, allowing you to see the female protagonist, in the living room, with the doorway behind her.
We then see a figure step into the door way with a plain white sack over their head, yet the woman is unaware, the mask and appearance of the attacker and the unawareness introducing the shock factor into the audience, the music going dead at this point. This introduces the attackers and adds more fear. The attackers then become more and more involved in the story, making the protagonists' chances of survival less likely and indicating the moment of attack is near, with the phone being put in the fire and the word 'hello' written several times on the window. This breaks the barrier of the attackers being outside, wanting to get in, to actually being within the home and our comfort zone. The introduction of the axe smashing through the door, a classic weapon used in horror films, I believe is a good way of showing how the attackers are intruding into, not only the couples comfort zone, but the audiences too. The shots speed up, creating more intensity in the way the viewer's watching it. Ending with a blurred shot of the main attacker, possibly a point of view shot from disorientated member of the couple, and the title fades in.

I believe sound is incredibly important in this trailer and plays a vital part in enforcing the fear. We are firstly given some natural sounds, e.g. crickets, to show the viewers that this is an isolated area. With a very slow, calm piano playing over the top. The first bit of speech is between the couple, it makes us understand that they are a couple, "you are my girl", "I love you". The loud noise from outside interrupts the happy, normal couple scene, the sound then turns to more conventional horror sounds; creaking swings, "what is that?". The male protagonist tries to reinforce safety into the situation; "it's okay there's nothing here", however it is obvious to the viewers that he is wrong. The sound goes silent as the main attacker is introduced through the doorway, this is to create more of a shock factor. Weird noises coming from the woods is yet another iconic horror convention used in this trailer.
More binary opposition is used when the record begins to play, seemingly on its own, because how could something as innocent as a record induce fear? The singer on this song has a high pitched, odd, scratchy voice, anything but normal in this situation would be seen as strange and creepy. Suddenly, as the door is broken through, the record scratches and the tempo increases. The track is then put on a loop, this allows the cuts to be made at the same rate as the loop, therefore synchronising the two together, creating a higher tempo of shots, introducing more events leading to more horror displayed.
The music, after increasingly rapidly, comes to a complete halt and allows for speech between
the victim and attacker to take place;
"why are you doing this to us?", "because you
were home" over the top of the blurred image of the main attackers mask. This will finish off the trailer, leaving the viewer with unanswered questions and with anticipation as to what happened.


The character types are all fairly stereotypical. However you could question as to why there
were two female attackers and only one male. As, in the trailer, the male seems to do all the work, especially physically, e.g. smashing the door in with the axe and seems to be the only one actually trying to kill the couple. Gender stereotyping definitely comes into it. As the male protagonist is the leader of the couple, he gives out orders as to what they should do, "we gotta get outta here". He is the one who has the gun, whereas his partner has a knife, the gun the more powerful and deadly weapon, implying that, if any of them are going to stop these attackers, it will have to be that man. He is the one standing in front of his partner, shielding her away. He goes out to the car to try and find a way of escape. All of these things expected of a man in a this situation simply due to physical differentiation. These attackers, like many other monsters/killers in horrors, are wearing iconic masks we could immediately relate back to the film. The masks do two crucial things; they allow the viewer to relate more to the film, i.e. if they see that mask/a similar mask, they will most likely think of this film. They also create more fear, as we're used to seeing constantly changing human faces, if suddenly a emotionless white bag over a face, then we see this as different and strange. As far as the masks go, we see the male attackers mask more than either of the females, making us relate the majority of our fear with him, rather than the females.

Binary opposition is a key theme here, as I've mentioned with the swing set creaking and the record playing. The Freudian theory could be involved here as well, as the couple attacked are obviously a very serious couple, as a wedding ring is shown earlier in the trailer. I believe the masks are used to show that horror/evil has no face, that it cannot be consumed by just one person.