Narrative & Genre Analysis; Friday The 13th Poster

Genre: The poster clearly displays itself as a horror film via the following. Firstly the typography is in a slashed almost brutal form of writing text showing violence along with the blood stained font as well. The colours are extremely dark even the night sky is a dark blue with black and a sharp contrast of white which indicates shock and horror prominent in most horror films, using semiotics and typography it can represent the generic Good Vs. Evil. Using Mise En Scene we can clearly see that there is knife, a silhouette and blood these in effect showcase the main ingredients of a horror/slasher film. Also iconography can be used to understand the genre as a full moon has fixed symbolic meaning associated with horror myths e.g Werewolves etc.

Narrative: Using Cinema theories and iconography we can deduce the main narrative of the story. We can see that the Hero is within the group of benefactors or friends in the poster who aid the hero in the narrative according to Vladimir Propp’s Fairytale Narrative Theory. In addition we can see a tree stump damaged from all the other trees in the woods effectively disturbing the established equilibrium of nature and the disrupted balance between the group of friends using Mise En Scene and Tzyelan Todorov’s Narrative Theory. Using Propp’s theory we can also tell the hero has left home as they appear to be on a vacation camping trip in the woods hence the cabin. Using Mise En Scene we can also tell that the tree stump can mean death and all things unnatural displaying the persona of the killer. Also via Mise En Scene we know that within the story the killer is in a superior predator vs. prey (victims from the group in the picture) type of position, judging by silhouette and victims picture size. The illuminated outline of the killer suggests a unnatural inhuman persona much like the tree stump does as a sawn tree does not naturally occur. Also we can see binary opposites within the colour of the text and typography with white innocence and red evil sin, also we see the predator silhouette and the prey (group of victims) who are also binary opposites using Levi Strauss’s Binary Opposites theory.