The strangers: trailer analysis

The strangers is a 2008 horror film directed by Bryan Betino in which a young couple are attacked in their summer house by three masked maniacs.

The trailer follows a loose chronological pattern highlight a clear beginning and middle to the story but distorting the end pattern of the trailer to not give away how the film will end. It also runs for 2:00 with 91 different shots shown

The trailer begins with a very calm felling setting up an atmosphere that we would not traditionally associate with a horror film. It establishes this by using soothing piano music as its background as well as fades in between close ups of the couples smiling faces and even an engagement ring. As well of this a calm tone is set to the trailer through the opening scequence dialogue the couple telling each other that they love each other in hushed voices. 

This period of the trailer lasts for around 18 seconds then is abruptly ended by a loud bang. From here the trailer goes through a segment with no music what so ever but rather just the occasional creek from a swing. This 25 second period is telling us the story through titles to create further tension such a "based on true events" and "but sometimes we are wrong".

Following straight after the above text is what is in my opinion one of the most powerful and eerie clips shown in this trailer. for around 9 seconds we are shown a still long shot of one of our who we assume to be a protagonist standing off center from the camera as one of the masked villains slowly makes there way in the shot and stands there motionless staring at her. This creates a very uncomfortable atmosphere within the trailer.

It is at this point when the background sound starts to build with drumming getting louder with a whining accompanying it until again the tempo of the trailer is changed once more when an axe cut through the front door and a record player begins to play.

It is for the next 18 seconds of this trailer whilst the record player plays on a stuck loop that increases in tempo the longer it goes on that we see the vast majority of our shots. Non of which are on screen for more than a second. These shots are also in a wide variety constantly changing from still almost picture like clips to moving action ones and from establishing and long shots to close ups of items. This accompanied by the quickening cuts between scenes creates a sense of panic and fear in the trailer and then once again in theme with the rest of the trailer is abruptly ended so that their is no sense of calming.

It is from this that we arrive at our last key moment of the trailer where we are shown a distorted, blurry, off center close up of one of our main masked villains. To this scene there is no music, only dialogue where we hear non diagetic sound of a women asking the villain "why are you doing this to us". in which they reply "because you are home". This used in the closing moments of the trailer creates mystery no just of who the masked maniac is but also what is so special about the 'home' in which they are willing to kill for it.