The Possession Poster Analysis

The Possession Poster Analysis

Introduction
I will be analysing the poster for The Possession to uncover the true meaning behind the poster, why the creators chose certain elements and to learn from the poster so I can use that knowledge for my own poster.  The Possession is a film within the Possession genre of Horror and is very interesting to analyse.  My possible narratives and have been greatly influenced by the film so I believe that analysing this poster will allow me to learn a great deal into making a poster for a Possession film.

Poster Conventions

The poster fulfils the general and layout conventions of a typical film poster but doesn't break any conventions.  This is an image showing a typical film poster layout:

The main image fills the frame, attracting the audience's attention towards the centre of the poster.  I would say that the poster does a very good job at drawing in the audience's attention through the main image, since it is a very effective and memorable image, making the audience more likely to see the film.  The title of the film, The Possession, is placed at the bottom of the poster in the centre of the frame.  It is positioned like this because it will be the last thing that the audience will see, making them more likely to remember it.  The tagline, "Darkness lives inside", is placed just underneath the title and this is done to ensure that the audience will see it and remember it.  Institutional information is placed right at the bottom of the frame so the viewer does not have to look at it.  There is one thing that is placed on the top of the poster and that is the phrase "Based on a true story".  It is placed there because it will be the first thing that the person will see, meaning that they will remember it for longer.

Main Image

The main image shows a young girl in a white gown with a hand coming out of her mouth and covering her face.  She is bent backwards, facing upwards as this hand is coming out of her. This tells us that she is possessed by an evil spirit and is taking over her by force.  She cannot fight back and must endure what the evil being is doing to her.

-Setting

There are two things in the main image that tell us something about the setting of the film.  The first is the background, a wall behind the girl that looks old, cracked and dirty.  This can lead us to believe that the film takes place in an isolated location, since the wall gives the impression that no one is there to look after it.  Two of the most likely places for the setting to be are either a prison or a mental institute.  These two settings scare us since they are associated with having dark histories, evil things that happen in these areas that no one speaks of.  It creates a mystery that the audience try desperately to solve, allowing their minds to wonder and think of terrible things that might have happened there thus making the setting even more scary.  The idea also links into society's greatest fear, the fear of the unknown.

The second feature of the main image that tells us about the setting is the costume that the girl is wearing.  While it only seems like a white gown, we only see the costume up until her shoulders so we do not see the rest of the costume.  We can interpret the costume as a straight jacket then since we do not know what else the costume could be, further linking the setting and connoting the idea that The Possession is set within a mental institute.  Another interpretation that supports the idea of the girl wearing a straight jacket is the hand coming out her mouth. Her hands are locked into the straight jacket, not being able to move them, so the hand tries to break free from anywhere it can, and in this case that place is her mouth.

This setting is very conventional for the Possession sub genre and helps to fulfil horror conventions since audiences are scared of settings that they believe have a dark history.

-Lighting

The light is coming from the top right corner and shining down onto the girl.  Since the lighting is this way it gives off two major effects and meanings that the audience can identify.  The first is that the bright light is shining above the girl, representing heaven, is her way of defeating the evil inside of her.  She is looking up into heaven to find a way to stop it.  It shows the fight between good and evil and further promotes religious imagery in the Possession genre.

The second major effect and meaning is the darkness surrounding the bottom left corner of the image.  The darkness spreads from the bottom to the back of her head and this could represent the evil making its way through her body and that it is taking control over her.  It also connotes the evil that is fighting against the good, and the darkness fighting against the light, further supporting the religious imagery being used in the Possession genre.  The darkness can also link into the fear of the unknown since we cannot see what is hiding beneath the shadows and we also do not know what the evil being inside of her looks like.

These effects create fear amongst the audience and make the mood of the image more bleak, scary and frightening.

-Mise - en - Scene

--Costume

In the poster we see the girl wearing some sort of white gown.  Since it is a close up shot, we cannot see what the white gown really is.  There are a few theories to deduce what the costume is.  One is that it is a straight jacket and that she is in a mental institute.

No matter what the costume is, we can gather meaning from the colour of it.  The white gown represents the innocence that the girl has and that she was once pure before she became possessed.  The lighting darkens the look of the gown and this could represent the fact that her innocence and purity has been tainted by the evil being inside of her.

--Props

The hand rising from the girl's mouth is grey, old and rotting (notice the dent where its thumb meets the hand).  This connotes the idea that the hand is part of a dead person. The nails and the hand itself is dirty, meaning that maybe that the body that the hand is part of was buried into the dirt.  We can interpret the hand as the personification for death itself, hinting that the girl is about to be killed and that death is taking over her life.  Another thing that reinforces this interpretation of the hand is that the fingers are pressing against her skull, meaning that the evil being is trying to take away everything from the girl, merely making her a shell for the evil to live in.

--Facial Expression / Body Language

The hand covers the girls face so we cannot see her facial expression, however if we imagine that the hand isn't there, she may look like she is screaming or crying for help.

Her body language shows that she is unable to help and defend herself, since her neck is bent backwards and she is facing the top of the poster.  She is looking for a way to break free from the thing inside of her.  It shows that she is desperate and makes the audience care for the girl, making them more scared to find out what is inside of her, making her into this unusual body position.

--Colour

The colours in the main image are white, black and grey.  These colours are seen as depressing, bleak and scary and this reflects the image as a whole.  Black represents the darkness and the evil inside of her that is taking control over her body.  The white background and the white gown represents the contrast between darkness and light, and good against evil. It tells us about the girl's innocence and purity, making us relate to the character more and emotionally connecting us to the film.  The grey colour of the hand represents the mix between black and white, telling us that while the girl was innocent, that is no longer the case.

--Positioning

The girl and the hand are positioned at the centre of the poster, focusing our attention to the main image, drawing in the audience and make them want to see the film even more.  The hand being placed above the girl shows that the evil has dominance over her and that it controls her, making us more scared about the demon that is possessing the girl.

Title

The title of the film, "The Possession", clearly tells us that the film is about someone being possessed.  Using the word "Possession" allows us to identify what sub genre that the film falls into.

The narrative of the film is very clearly suggested through the title but doesn't reveal too much about the plot, enticing us to come and see the film.

Tagline

The tagline for the film is "Darkness Lives Inside" and this can connote a number of things. This can be interpreted into a literal meaning; that the evil inside of her lives there and that she cannot escape or break free from it.  It also can mean something else, the fact that darkness lives inside all of us and that everyone has a little bit of evil inside of them.  This can scare the audience and entice them even more to see the film.

Other Text

In the poster there are two other pieces of text that need to be discussed.  The first is the institutional information placed underneath the tagline.  It tells the audience who created the film, giving us the director's name and names of other important people who made the film.  If someone sees that the film is being directed or written by a certain person that they like, they will be more enticed to see the film.  This text is accompanied by the date in which the film is released, which can be seen in red.

Another piece of text is the phrase at the top of the poster: "Based on a true story" and this entices the audience even more, making them believe that the events in the film could happen in real life, scaring them even more.

Other Colour

Four colours are seen in this poster, white, black, grey and red.  Red is a typical colour that is seen in the Horror genre and that is because it represents some Horror iconography, blood.  It is also a colour that attracts attention, making the audience look at the important information that is coloured red.

White is used to represent the innocence and the purity that the girl has in the main image.  It is also used for the text at the bottom of the screen where the lighting gets darker and this shows the contrast between light and dark.  The audience can also see the text clearly because it is coloured white.

Black is used represent the darkness and the evil that is being portrayed on screen.  The phrase "Based on a true story" is written in black and is placed above the girl in the main image, connoting the idea that the evil is always on top of her and is in control over her.

Grey represent the mix between good and evil, the fact that the girl has lost who she really is and is just a shell for the evil to live inside of her.

Conclusion

Overall the poster follows many Horror and Possession conventions that effective entice the audience to see the film.  It uses many techniques to ensure that a deeper meaning is established to give us insight into what the film is about and what it is trying to teach us.  It is a very typical Possession Horror film poster and allows us to easily identify what genre is falls into through the use of codes and conventions of not just Horror films, but poster conventions as well.