The only main colours in the poster are white and yellow, with the minor use of black. The use of yellow helps create a grainy and gritty color effect which emphasis the location being set in the desert. The only use of white is in the title of the film ‘The Hills Have Eyes 2’, which helps the title standout more in the poster, to capture the attention of viewers, so that they’ll hopefully remember the name of the film when they go to the cinema. The use of black fading around the sides of the poster helps create a claustrophobic feeling, helping create a sense of entrapment, which may link in with the narrative of the film.
The mysterious potential villain blocks out half the sun, leaving the top half of his body covered in shadows. This symbolizes a dark personality, with unclear and dark motives, clearly establishing him as a potential villain. The title of the film symbolizes its location, due to how the ‘Hills’ word, links in with the deserts vast amount of sand hills. The word ‘eyes’ in the title suggests that there’s someone or a group of people spying on victims, linking in with the idea that people are being captured and trapped.
The villain and victim are the main focus in the poster, due to how there are positioned in the centre to grab audience’s attention, to give more narrative of the film away.
Visual and verbal messages are used throughout the poster, to help give the narrative of the film away to audiences through different forms. The visual messages are the most popular form in the poster such as there being someone in a bag being pulled away by a mysterious figure, suggesting the film to be about abductions and entrapment. Another verbal message is the empty desert landscape, suggesting that victims, who maybe abducted have no chance of escape or help. The only verbal message is the title, which suggests that the film is set in the desert where people are being spied on, probably leading to abduction.
By analyzing the visual messages, it seems that the film may display quiet violent scenes due to how the victim is being dragged on the floor by a mysterious figure. The whole colour scheme of the poster uses a dark yellow pallet, which creates a dark atmosphere full of tension and suspense. It’s due to these two main visual aspects of the poster that I feel it’s intended for 18 years old and older (male and female) because they’ll be the only type of audience that will be legally old enough to probably see all the graphical violent scenes that the film may have to offer.
The poster uses tension a lot by not revealing too much of the narrative away such as the face of the mysterious villain dragging a person in a bag, to help establish who he is and if he’s human or not. The poster relatively leaves audiences with only a few clues to the narrative, never revealing the whole extent of it, persuading audiences to watch the film in order to find answers. Another persuasive technique is that the poster uses the title ‘The Hills have Eyes 2’. By putting 2 in the title, it’s establishing that the film is a sequel to a prequel and so viewers maybe interested in watching the film, due how the first film must have been good enough for there to be a sequel.
