Poster Analysis

The women has been photographed in a close up shot with a blue tint to the photograph. The blue tint makes the image look sinister along with the piercing red eyes. The red eyes connote some sort of danger or evil theme to the film - this could suggest it is a horror film. The main colours used in the poster are red/oranges as well as the blue tint, this could suggest that the film is not just a horror film it also has crime and phycological elements. Alot of cop/crime shows have a blue motif to them such as law and order. This is not a typical horror film, it is not your typical slasher which you can tell by the poster.

The women herself does not look evil as such because she does not look angry or frightening to the viewer cause you can tell the eyes were made red in post production. The women herself is the main character played by Jodie Foster who is a well renowned actress. Her face in the image is half dark and half light which could suggest two binary opposites of good and evil as well as criminals and the police, those of which could be apparent in the film.

The poster is quite simplistic as the mise en scene only includes a women and includes a death head hawk moth which if you know the book or film is the moth that is grown by the villan in the film. This moth is cleverly placed over the women's mouth the represent 'silencing' her. This links in well with the title, the colour of the text of the title is an orange colour which appears to be have picked from the colour of the moths wings. The moth seems to be added in post production on photoshop perhaps from a photograph of the real moth or digital graphics. The moth looks evil and signifys death as it has a skull on it which represents the horror genre. This suggests there could be a theme of death or murder within the film.

The tagline is telling the audience that the movie has been made from a 'terrifying' best seller. Again, telling the audience it is a horror film, it is also opening the market to those who have read the book by novelist Thomas Harris, this widens the target audience. By the looks of this poster the target audience is 16-25 years olds, much like most horror films, but because it is not a slasher it can be enjoyed by audiences over 25 years too.