Film title: The Collector; Directed by: Marcus Dunstan; Year of Release: 2009. Synopsis: When the Chase family moves to an isolated house in the middle of nowhere in Detroit, Arkin is hired to fix the windows and the doors. Later he meets his daughter and his wife that has a debt with dangerous sharks and needs money, but his week payment is not enough to pay her debts. Arkin plots to heist the safe of Michael Chase during the night to raise the necessary money. However, when he arrives in the house, he finds that a sadistic criminal has imprisoned the family and planted traps everywhere. Arkin seeks a way out of the deadly house to save his life.
The poster and trailer I will be doing a textual analysis on are the ones of the movie called: The Collector. I chose to do this movie because I believe it has a good poster and trailer which draw the crowd into wanting to see the movie and makes them raise curious questions. I will be discussing the mise en scene, techniques used, denotations and the connotations of both.
The poster:
The poster of the movie shows a medium close-up shot of the antagonist, but he is facing the other way. We can tell that he is the antagonist because of his dark clothing and the concealing of his identity. There is a house in the background, he is tightening a mask. There are words at the top saying “he always takes one” and the film title and the rest are at the bottom. The name of the film lets the audience know or believe that people are going to be taken by this person, or at least attempted to.
The words “He always takes one” open a whole new side to the film for the audience to comprehend by conveying a story and past behind this antagonist.
I think that the concealing of his identity is a good touch to the poster as it gives the audience a sense of suspicion and allows us to imagine what his face is like, and so go and see the film to find out. I believe this is one of the techniques used by the poster designer. The font used is a basic font in white colour which compliments the composition as a whole and is at the top and bottom of the poster. The title stands out in its big and bold font. The mask of the character is very detailed tightly around their head.
Mise en scene:
Lighting: The only light in the poster is coming from the house; it creates an outline of the antagonist and lets us know that it is his destination and he plans to do something there. It connotes him as the darkness which is going to invade the light.
Setting: The setting in the poster is seen to be outside a big house, possibly in the front garden, this lets us know that the majority, or the climax action scenes, of the film will be set in this house. This is good because it keeps the film confined and together in one specific place which adds to the intensity.
Costume: The antagonist is wearing a black top of some sort and black gloves, these are common conventions for a robber who will try and blend into the darkness. So this lets us know the guy is going to do some sort of robbing, and also it being called The Collector begs us to believe that he will be taking actual people. He is also seen tightening something which covers his head, this is obviously a mask. This lets us know that he is concealing his identity, and probably has an indecent face which we will be curious to see and so will go to watch the movie.
From looking at the poster I believe the intended audience is young adults who like these types of realistic horrors. They would be interests in this text because it is an original poster, so it appeals because it is different. I think the purpose of this poster is to make people question and bring up summaries in their minds as to what it is about.
Also from looking at this poster I can see that the man’s tight grip on the strings connotes aggressiveness, also his mask connotes evil and mysteriousness. The big house also connotes a well off family, who possibly could be hated by this anonymous man, and also connotes society’s tension between the working and middle classes.
So ultimately, the poster has much to offer to potential audiences of the film and lures them into wanting to watch it; this is due to such elements as the originality of the poster and the endless questions it raises as to what the film is about. The poster encourages the audience to go and seek these answers by the only effective way possible, seeing the film.
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