Horror Movie Titles Deconstruction

Horror Movie Titles Deconstruction

  I'm looking at how the titles for horror movies are usually named and I looked at 5 films.

The first one is: 

"The Last House on the Left"

 The title of this film, tells the audience the setting of the film, as it is a literal description of the main place in the film. The word "house" is the only word that is emphasised in a red colour with blood spurts coming out of it, which shows that the murders will take place there, and tells the audience that it is a dangerous place. It will also let the audience know beforehand, where all the action takes place, so that the audience will be feeling really tense when the house is shown on the screens and they think that the characters "can't go into there." The blood also reveals that the film is going to be a slasher film.

  The rest of the name is printed in white, so that it contrasts with the red, making the word "house" stand out more. It also makes the title more readable as it is against a black background.

"Insidious"

  This film name only uses one word, which summarises what the villain in the film is like. The definition of "Insidious" is: "proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with very harmful effects."This is probably taken as a theme in the movie, and used to describe the supernatural entity that will be present within the film. Also, having one worded film titles can be more effective than having a really long title, as it makes it short and quick which gives the audience some curiosity to what the film is about, because most people wouldn't know what "insidious" meant unless they looked it up.

  The colour white is used for the colour, which gives it a ghostly feel, as it is a supernatural horror. There are several places on the characters where the whiteness's opacity is very low, making it very transparent, which makes it seem more eerie.

"The Roommate"

  Again, this title is very literal, as it just straight out uses the villain as the title of the film, so the audience knows straight away that it will be a slasher film, where the abnormal person is "the roommate."

 The whole title is in red, however, this time it does not want the red to represent blood but to represent danger, due to the font being really bold, with no blood spurts or blood running down it, the font is almost very military styled. 

  The word "Roommate" is significantly bigger than the word "the" because it is a lot more important, and it draws the audiences eyes towards it.

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

  This film title already reveals what is to happen in the movie with the word "massacre" and what the main weapon of the massacre would be by putting in the word "chainsaw." So the audience is already spoilered with a lot of facts and they will know what they are in for when they go and watch this film. 

  The colour used is a very light yellow which a gold bordering the edges of the characters. This gives it quite a rustic and olden feel to the title and movie. There are also slight smudges to the text which adds to that effect.

"Sinister"

  We once again have a one worded film title. The word chosen is used to describe the supernatural entity as being "sinister," however it doesn't give away any plot unlike the other film titles that I have deconstructed. 

  They used the colour black, because it is a very dark and malicious colour, which fits in with the name. It is portrayed as if the letters has been soaked in water, and the ink is dripping down the page. After watching the film, it makes sense to why they used the theme of water for the font, as there is a heavy emphasis on water in the film.