Exploring Genre
The trailer for “The Conjuring 2” is a perfect example to demonstrate the defining traits of the horror film genre. This trailer has plenty of elements that you would expect to see during a trailer for a horror film, from jump scares to spooky music.
In terms of iconography, horror films are flooded with traits that you can link to the genre. The trailer starts with the opening company logos, which are no longer sunny and golden, but dark and cloudy. They then show the environment in which the film takes place, with the darkest, gloomiest shots of the house, with a dark atmospheric sound droning on in the background and a creepily morbid conversation between mother and daughter. Rapidly flickering lights and various shots from throughout the film of glass shattering and screaming to show intensity, as well as paranormal moments that are short but scary. They have longer shots of paranormal oddities such as floating people and silhouettes. A commonly recurring symbol within horror films is the religious cross. The ‘sanctuary’ room filled with crosses to keep out evil spirits is shown being corrupted, and the crosses all flip upside down, which is commonly associated with the anti-Christian sentiment, or the satanic cross. The trailer ends with a jump scare of an old, shadowy figure emerging from the dark. Yet another common property within the horror genre.
The structure of the trailer is very dark and eerie. Horror films are of course created with the intention of scaring the audience. The trailer strongly enforces the evil atmosphere, throughout all of the aforementioned iconographies. The structure is put together to start as creepy and progressively becomes scarier. As the beginning starts quiet and ominous, it delivers a short summary of the plot, while slowly the tension rises and rises, and eventually reaches the stage that validates the horror film aspects, however not revealing any key moments, but providing enough to have the audience interested and wanting to see the film.
There are no real issues or ideals that this film addresses within the trailer or the film itself for that matter. Unlike many films that are created nowadays with the intention of raising awareness or giving the audience a perspective they may not have seen or considered before, such as films like “12 Years A Slave”, The Conjuring 2 is more for the thrill. The horror film genre in itself is really created for a fun experience in which the audience watches for a scare, rather than a deeper meaning or message. Not that it’s a bad thing that there is no underlying message, but rather, the genre doesn’t strive to accomplish such feats and is instead just pure entertainment.
The trailer for The Conjuring 2 definitely conforms to the regular normalities shown within films in the horror genre. The ideology behind horror films is to make the viewers react in a particular way, and in this case, that is to be scared. They create these films with just that in mind, and the trailer definitely creates the atmosphere and has the scenes necessary to display that it is a horror film that can live up to the expectations of being scared. Overall the trailer does an excellent job of establishing its place as a horror film, and demonstrates that through its iconography, structure, and straightforward spooky theme.
