Smiley poster analysis

Smiley, 2012, is an American psychological slasher that depicts the life of a young teen after discovering a “demented serial killer” that has nothing but a smiley face carved and sewn into the flesh on his overly sized, bare face.

The poster is one of many horror designs that includes conventional techniques that help the audience to distinguish the genre of the film and whether they would specifically be interested in watching it. These typical conventions include; a large image of the “masked” killer, the young victims appearing weak and powerless, colour schemes such as black and red and easily read titles that are written in capitals, to name but a few. The designer of the poster has taken everything into consideration when creating the advertisement and made sure that conventions that would help to depict the film without having to read any information were included.

When studying the images on the poster, I feel that the antagonist in the film has been enlarged to fit the whole of the page to be compared to the seven victims placed in front. Having achieved this, I feel that this image reinforces the power and authority the serial killer has over the innocent, conventionally attractive characters that are shown to be sexually appealing, young students. The protagonist in the film has been brought forward in the poster and shown to have more importance than the other victims and is likely to be the character that lives, the final girl. Other characters such as the female wearing a low cut top are designed to appear fatally weak and are destined to be killed. The killers face has a large shadow cast over his face, making him appear sinister. The costumes of all of the characters are largely different to the antagonist’s and simply make the killer appear more psychologically disturbed. His large overalls help to influence the audience into believing that he is a dirty, unhygienic, unpleasant creature that clearly is not normal.

The colour scheme of the poster is predominantly dark colours such as blacks and navy’s. These colours typically represent evil and death whilst evoking unpleasant, mysterious feelings. The only colour on the poster is the title “Smiley” and the website listed for more information. These specific parts are red and help to represent blood, anger, hate and power which conveniently draws attention to these important sections. Having a plain black background presents the audience with the claustrophobic, closed in feeling whilst making sure that the focal point of the killer is viewed first and us as viewers cannot get distracted by anything in the background.

The tag line, “The new face of fear” presents the audience with the realisation that the face will be one that we remember at our weakest moments and will give us nightmares. This tag line suggests that the specific appearance of the killer is the signifier of “Smiley” and is now the new “chucky” from Child’s play or the female face from “The exorcist”.

All of the important information such as date releases, actors and studios have been included in the credit block at the bottom of the page for anyone who is interested.

Having analysed this particular poster, I would suggest that the target audience would be predominantly males at the age of 16-25.