Jude White
A2 Media
9315
Crimson Peak is an upcoming gothic romantic horror film by acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro. Seeing as the film has not been released yet, I decided that I should analyse the trailer, as I cannot be biased by my knowledge of the final product when analysing elements in the trailer and their connotations.
Overall mise-en-scene
The mise-en-scene of this trailer generally adheres to the conventions of gothic horror. right from the outset, we see an establishing shot of a grand old-fashioned house in a storm. Both this type of location and weather are conventional of gothic horror, the latter being a use of pathetic fallacy to reflect the overall mood of the trailer.
We also see characters in old-fashioned clothing, which once more grounds the film in a gothic setting; most gothic horror is set in the past, be it in our universe or a fantasy one. Our main character, both in childhood and adulthood, wears expensive-looking dresses or blouses, suggesting she comes from a well-off family, and the man she meets later in the trailer wears equally expensive-looking but very dark clothes, potentially suggesting both wealth and an element of darkness or malevolence about himself or his situation. The protagonist wears glasses which could suggest intelligence. In terms of props, the use of a typewriter and a slide projector not only ground this setting in the past, but the latter also brings in a trope of horror; ghosts being visible in captured images.
In terms of settings, we see three main ones in the trailer; the house where our protagonist grew up, a large town (including a park), and another house to which she is taken by the man she meets. In particular, these houses are both particularly gothic in their grandeur and age; a nice touch is the red clay path leading up to the second house, which connotes blood and therefore horror. The second house is where the majority of the trailer, and therefore the film, seems to take place, and therefore it is worth analysing in more depth. The house itself is very isolated, surrounded by empty space, which helps to make the characters feel more vulnerable, as though they cannot find anyone to help them when the situation inevitably turns for the worst. The wide establishing shot in which we first see the house serves to highlight this isolation. The sky we see behind it is grey and bleak which is another example of pathetic fallacy being used to connote the mood of the film. The time of year is clearly winter due to the dead trees and foliage, which gives a sense of a harsh or oppressive environment. The interior of the house is very dark most of the time, with shadowy areas all around, and seems to a degree in disrepair, which is another key piece of iconography in horror when referring to settings.
One thing I find particularly interesting about this trailer is the amount of bright colours used. It is something of a trope of modern horror to use desaturated imagery, as seen in films such as 'Insidious.' However, Del Toro has never seemed to subscribe to this way of doing things, with his past works such as 'Pan's Labyrinth' bringing in a lot of colour to strike a balance between dark fantasy and horror, and a similar effect is created here. For example, in another horror film the light shining through this window might be an off-white colour, but in Crimson Peak it is a bright blue. The candle flames are also a very bright shade of orange.
When discussing the mise-en-scene of a Del Toro film, monster design is of course of utmost importance. Del Toro seems enamoured with the surreal and the disturbing, and the design of the ghosts in 'Crimson Peak' only serves as evidence for this. The ghosts are deformed humanoids, which are scary because they are similar enough to a human to feel familiar, yet distorted enough to be unsettling; it is human nature to fear something familiar which has been altered and made evil. Notably, we are not shown a great deal of the ghosts in the trailer, which leaves us curious and wanting to see the full movie.
Camera shots, movements and transitions
Throughout the trailer for 'Crimson Peak,' there are a multitude of different shot types, all used for different effects, and I will therefore focus on the most notable or interesting of these, and the effects created. To make a good trailer, a wide variety of shots are usually needed to keep things fresh and interesting, so that potential customers do not get bored or lose interest. The trailer opens with an establishing shot of a gothic-styled house, which immediately gives us an idea as to the kind of film it will be advertising. The lamppost in the foreground is old-fashioned and re-iterates that the film will not only feature a gothic setting but will be set in the past, which is common in gothic horror.
An interesting sequence that follows soon after the opening shot is the sequence of the protagonist as a child. There are two particularly interesting shots used here. In one mid shot, we see a shot of the girl looking off somewhere behind the camera, as the camera slowly creeps closer to her. This movement makes us feel as though something is moving towards our protagonist, and given her fearful expression, it must be something scary. This subtle motion trick already informs us that the film will be a horror.
Another interesting shot is taken from the other side of the girl, looking off towards the threat. Lighting has been used cleverly in this shot to draw our eyes to where we should be looking; only a small portion of the frame is well-lit. We slowly see a scary shadow move into this section before the shot fades out into a dip to black. These dip to blacks help the audience to avoid confusion, as unlike simple cuts they obscure the image briefly, telling us there are things we have not seen and allowing for ellipsis to take place, which is vital in trailers as they have to show moments from throughout a film.
The use of a close-up in this section also helps us to identify with the main character and build a rapport with her, and similar close-ups are used throughout the trailer for similar reasons; to tell us how to feel about certain characters. For example, when Tom Hiddlestone's character is introduced he is framed in a low-angle close-up, which makes him seem as though he has a power, either emotional or physical, over our protagonist. However, before and after this we see two close-ups of the protagonist, which reinforces her role as such; seeing her reactions helps us identify further with her. In fact, it is the way the camera priveleges her that makes me refer to her as the protagonist in the first place; after all, I have not seen the film.
This shot (right) from near the beginning of the trailer is another key shot in terms of the horror atmosphere. The shot lingers for a few seconds with a huge patch of darkness in the top half of the shot, and we as an audience wait in fearful anticipation of something emerging from this dark patch. Eventually, a clearly non-human hand emerges and grabs the girl, giving us a moment of release for our pent-up tension. We clearly see her reaction also, helping us to identify with her. This shot is also slowly zooming in, giving us an excellent sense of claustrophobia as our field of view narrows.
It could be said that this shot (left) is quite typical of psychological horror. The protagonist is foregrounded but out-of-focus. Instead, the camera focuses on something threatening moving behind her, which we can see but she cannot. This makes her seem vulnerable and increases the tension in the trailer.
As I have stated above, this establishing shot of the house in which most of the film seems to take place is a clever one. One might expect the clay pathway leading up to the house to be framed centrally, but it is actually framed off to one side which gives a sense of unease and disorder. The carriage is very small in the frame and is shot from a high angle, which makes the characters feel isolated and vulnerable. This is actually a panning crane shot which starts by showing us the name on the gate of the house, before looking at the carriage, which is a clever way of informing us of the name of the house.
Mid-shots like this one are incredibly common in horror films; they very effectively place an emphasis on the empty space around the character, which suggests to the audience that something unseen is lurking there, as well as highlighting the character's isolation, to make the viewer feel anxious. This shot in particular is slowly, almost imperceptibly panning, which makes the shot feel as though something could happen at any moment; a static shot would perhaps suggest a static environment or scene, in which we take things at face value.
Overall, a variety of shots are used to different effects, which helps to break the trailer up and prevent the audience from losing interest. Some of these shots, such as the crane shot detailed above, contain motion, whereas some do not, and again this helps to add variety. The shots in this trailer are surprisingly character-driven, with few blatant scares or attemtps to draw the eye to a scary entity. Instead, medium close-ups or close-ups of the main characters are often favoured, as well as shots displaying nothing immediately scary but suggesting something lurks nearby. What is essentially created is a sense of palpable unease, but also intrigue. In becoming attached to these characters, we will fear more for their safety.
In terms of transitions, this trailer uses a mixture of dip to blacks and cuts, in order to remain cohesive whilst allowing ellipsis. A cut will be used if a shot comes directly after the one before it chronologically, but if a large portion of time has been omitted a dip to black will be used; the screen is literally obscured as though we have missed something, and the purpose of the dip to black is to make sure we understand this. Take for example the conversation between Tom Hiddlestone's character and the protagonist when they meet. This section runs from 0:29 to 0:35 in the trailer (content ID prohibits me from reuploading it), and uses a dip to black to omit almost an entire conversation so that we as the audience can hear the important parts. However, during the exchanges we do see, cuts are used as we are seeing a chronological chunk of the film. Dip to blacks also help to build tension by making the audience wait, even momentarily, to see the resolution or outcome of the shot they have just seen.
Editing and Sound
The editing in this trailer is surprisingly slow for a horror trailer. When compared to the trailer for something like 'The Babadook,' for instance, shots tend to linger for much longer, with a stronger emphasis on slowly building intrigue as opposed to outright fear; Crimson Peak is a horror film, but not a terror film, the scares being perhaps more light and being used to drive the story. The editing actually begins reasonably fast for the opening sequence, with all but the tension-building shot of the hand being three seconds or under in length; the close-up of the girl is in fact only one second long! What is perhaps surprising, however, is that this trend of very short, snappy shots continues throughout most of the trailer. With a few exceptions, such as the establishing and first interior shots of the house, the editing remains reasonably fast throughout, but the main difference is that the music deepens and becomes more dramatic; even without a shift in the pace of the transitions, the music tells us the trailer is building towards something. Several cuts or dips are timed to coincide with the beating of a drum, which depeens this feeling. When compared to the trailer for a more traditional horror film, such as 'The Babadook,' this seems quite odd, but Del Toro has suggested that the horror elements will exist to drive the story, and are not the main component of it. There are no titles used in this trailer to explain the story; ellipsis has been used cleverly to tell us a great deal about the story's setup through conversations, as well as diegetic voiceovers taken from other scenes and played over the trailer, and as such titles are not necessary to help us understand what is going on. What i found most interesting about this was the lack of title cards advertising the actors' names; Tom Hiddlestone and Mia Wasikowska are well-respected actors, after all. However, I feel such titles might have taken the audience out of the story, and this trailer's aim seems to be to invest the audience in the story rather than dazzling them with canned special effects or big names.
Looking at sound in more detail, the harsh, grating sounds favoured by generic horror are missing here. Del Toro tends to produce a very different style of horror film, and as such the music is gothic and orchestral, with choral voices singing in the background, but not shrilly or in a way that is uncomfortable to the audience. Perhaps the second most important use of sound in this trailer is the use of diegetic voiceovers to provide context to the events on screen; sound clips from other scenes are taken and played over the images on the screen, in order to easily explain the story to the viewer as well as help us get to know the character who is speaking. The trailer also includes a few sound stypical to horror such as a whispered, ghostly voice and a loud scream to ground itself in the horror genre and sell itself to horror fans.
One thing I particularly liked in this trailer was the use of asynchronous dialogue to explain elements of the plot. I think this would be a really effective element to incorporate into our own trailer. I also liked the deep, non-diegetic noises used to punctuate the horror at the start of the trailer, and thought we could use something similiar.