Poster analysis (Advancement Through Time) - Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a very successful horror film series, producing lots of high quality, scary films. For each film, there have been separate and unique posters relating to the film which increased the amount of advertising and marketing each film got. On top of this, each film had multiple posters which further improved the branding of the films.

This poster on the left is for the first film which came out in the cinemas in 1974. The poster showcases the age of the film to the audience due to the colours used and how the poster is laid out. The colours are quite bland and almost cartoony. The layout of the poster is very simplistic and lacks creativeness. The poster shows a man holding a chainsaw with a woman tied up behind her. This suggests to the audience what the film will be like. Along the top in bright red letters is the films title, with a bright white question below which contrasts to the black background. The question makes the audience think and should make them want to find out the answers to the questions, which would only be possible by watching the film.

This modern day poster looks a lot cleaner, and is clear it is modern due to the colours, the general layout and also how the image is positioned. This poster is very dark which depicts the genre of the film. It suggests the film will be mysterious, leaving the audience in the dark. The title is a small font so is not very eye catching, however the film has enough branding by the 7^th film that the chainsaw is very iconic and most people will link a horror film poster and a chainsaw to 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' so the title is used to only confirm it. The title is still in red which is used to connotes blood and gore. The image of the person is zoomed in, showing his elbow to his knee. This leaves the audience clueless to who the man is, creating suspense. The man is holding a chainsaw, dripping in blood which is very well edited, making the poster look very professional and modern.

This poster is for the same film as the last poster, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D. This poster goes into more detail about the film along the bottom and again has the title in a small font. The character on the front is in dark clothes with a big mask on, holding a chainsaw. The chainsaw is angled in a way that makes it look like it is coming forwards, towards and through the screen as if in 3D. The poster is very dark and has the characters zoomed in, coving the entire poster.

The difference between the two posters is quite substantial, showing how technology and ability has advanced in 40 years. Its very remarkable to see how different they are, and it's clear which poster came first due to its quality. This really shows off the different connotations in film posters and how they are produced, e.g. not much text, dark colours, image covering the entire poster and not a full body image.