Silent Hill Trailer Analysis

Silent Hill

The audience become aware of the horror genre early on in the trailer. This is shown when the scene of a mother and daughter are shown driving in to a mysterious place and the radio begins to radiate white noise. A slight jump scare is shown when a little girl is seen in the middle of the road. The mother then loses control of the car when she tries to avoid hitting the girl but fails and hits her. We then see as the girls body crashes through the car. This is when we find out that the girl is a ghost. This is a convention of a supernatural/ psychological horror. The setting of the trailer is also a convention because it is shown in a deserted, misty town. Or as the sign said: Silent Hill. The black text on a white background also conventional to a horror as it says ‘Fear without End.’

When the mother is looking around the town she is on the phone to a male who we can see on the screen. She then said: ‘Sharon is gone, I need your help. Im not okay, please hurry.’ The audience then begin to feel sorry for the mother as she feels distraught about losing her daughter.  We can then see a girl who looks like the woman’s daughter with the ghost from the road. The mother screams her name which the audience know that she is the daughter.

A little further on in the trailer,  the camera moves showing the mother as she looks for her daughter. We hear a swift noise like a breath moving quickly past her ear. This can lead the audience to believe that there is something behind them which also adds a ghostly atmosphere. A child is then shown with a close up. This is accompanied by three sharp noises when the child moves. This makes the scene feel unnerving and makes the audience feel frightened.

Throughout the trailer we are aware that the mother and daughter are in a paranormal world that could possibly represent hell.

We hear a sound of a knife being pulled from a sheath like its being swung. We can see that it is a mummy like creature that is swinging at the mother with a knife. The noise comes to a standstill abruptly which matched the footage on screen. This is then followed by the sound of a heartbeat and with each heartbeat a new clip is faded in and out. The last burst is of a loud, sharp screaming noise which makes the audience jump. This then makes the audience believe that there is going to be a bad ending for the characters which encourages the audience to go and see the full film in the cinema to find out what happens.

In the beginning, we see characters of a mother and daughter who are sitting against a tree in a field. The camera is seen to capture them through the long grass. This represents the idea of someone looking at them. This also shows the good that is happening before the bad. 

The speed of the editing begins to increase in the scene of the car, whereas leading up to this point it was all quite slow. Through this scene we realise that they are entering the place that the young girl had been dreaming of in her nightmares. There are quick separated clips as the mother loses control of the car, they are choppy and violent which suggests that something is wrong. When we see the mother as she wakes up from the crash, shots have been used to look as though she is looking around for her daughter outside. This makes the situations seem confusing and reflects the feelings the mother may have as she realises her daughter is missing. She runs in to the road screaming her daughter’s name when a black drop falls on to her face but is made aware that is it actually ash.

The sign reading ‘Silent Hill’ is then made prominent as she walks in to the town. The colours on the sign then become inverted and flashes of white are edited in to this shot. This could possibly be to represent evil as we see an inverted view of the town. 

There is an extreme long shot of the mother running down the ashy, isolated roads of Silent Hill before it cuts to black. The black may have been there to introduce the new character that is then on the screen which s the female police officer. The audience may then find some relief that the mother now has found help. From a low angle shot we are then shown a character wearing a cape who rids the sensation of relief and fills the audience with fear once again.