Design Notes, Tutorials and Articles: Top 10 Horror Movie Posters

10) The Ring - 2002

Some could argue but I'm placing at number 10 "The Ring", This was a great movie and the poster looked pretty convincing that it'd be a good movie. This helped the popularity figures for this movie when it was finally released. The poster gave like a female Boogie man effect. This caught the viewers attention because you weren't told if this was a demon or ghost or devil etc.

The Ring

Plot:

A young journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it. This movie successfully went on to a sequel "The Ring 2" in 2005 and then eventually after much demand a third installment in 2011. The ring had quite a high figure of 48 million to make but made a huge payback with a box office figured of $249,348,933.

9) The Descent - 2005

This movie was I feel has a well deserved place of 9th in our countdown the poster was hugely creative, great use of text to make the viewer think into the plot and story and the poster stuck to very dark colors with hints of Red and in the design aspect we know the color red indicates "Danger".

The Descent

Plot:

A caving expedition goes horribly wrong, as the explorers become trapped and ultimately pursued by a strange breed of predators. The descent went on to make the sequel made in 2009. As the first movie was budgeted at 3.5 million the money after the movie brought in a whopping box office figure of $57,051,052.

8) 28 Days later - 2002

Ever need to watch a good zombie movie 28 days gets my vote every time, This movie poster is fully red so its practically unmissable with some very creepy yellow eyes staring at the viewer, this automatically grabs the viewers attention and then the caption "Your days are number" as at the bottom of the poster, this building a suspense for the viewer and instantly letting them know there running away from something.

28 Days later

Plot:

Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary. 28 Days later went on to making a sequel called "28 Weeks later", and the first was budgeted at a pretty low £5,000,000 but made back $82,719,885 or £52,833,190.55, so this was a huge success for the movie.

7) The strangers - 2008

The caption " We tell ourselves there's nothing to fear, But sometimes were wrong.", this little caption i found was quite attention grabbing and was curious to see how the movie played out. What also makes this movie poster more attention grabbing is the fact that this movie was based on "True events".

The Strangers

Plot:

A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants. Budgeted at 9 million i was shocked to see that it made back an impressive $82,344,798.

6) Paranormal Activity - 2007

In my judgement Paranormal Activity was kind of the kick start to all the Spirit and demon movie's we have now, it was a new approach for horror films and was a great tension and spine chilling movie seen as you couldn't necessarily see the attacker of killer in this movie so everything happened as a sudden shock.

Like The Strangers movie posted this one also had the caption "Inspired by true events" grabbing the viewers attention straight away because this actually happened. The movie poster shows you how the film is actually seen, through a camcorder so the viewer knows what exactly to expect picture quality wise anyways. The poster is very dark mainly a dark blue color with red and white text. It also gives a quote above trying to convince the viewer its a scary movie.

Paranormal Activity

Plot:

After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence. If I was doing a blog about low budget movies that made a huge profit Paranormal Activity would be in the top 5, The cost to make this film was only $15,000 and there profit... a huge step up to $193,355,800.

5) Saw - 2004

Saw shocked loads of viewers, it was one graphical movie mainly to do with all the gore inside the movie but it gained popularity through its amazing and unpredictable twists. The movie poster for this movie shows you straight away its going to be a graphical movie when you see a severed hand as the main image in the center of the poster and above you can see the teeth of a chainsaw or long blade, it isn't made clear.

Saw

With a dead body lying between them, two men wake up in the secure lair of a serial killer who's been nicknamed "Jigsaw". The men must follow various rules and objectives if they wish to survive and win the deadly game set for them. The budget for this movie was 1.2 million and brought back to the box office $103,096,345. Saw also went on to not only doing sequels or trilogy's but went on to doing 7! Saw movies, these all became a big franchise.

4) Insidious - 2010

This movie poster is one of my favorite's and movie wise its a great movie too, the poster This posters main focus is the boy, his eyes are scratched out, normally in movie posters, the eyes are a really main focus as that is what people first look at, but this one, they have just been scratched out, this is a great way to introduce mystery to the audience. The colors of the image and background are unreal, the darkness of it, it just makes the audience wonder what is going on behind this little boy.

Insidious

Plot:

A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further. The budget for this spine chilling movie started off at 1.5 million and gained back an impressive $97,009,150. It was also given the "Go ahead" to make a sequel and currently in progress of a third installment.

3) Let the right one in - 2008

We have made it down to our top 3 movie posters, this one is a favorite of mine.
firstly our attention is dragged toward the finger tips you can see pressed against what we suspect is a window or some form of glass, the viewer straight away is wondering what is happening through the window as all we can see is the finger tips and blood splatters at the edge of the movie poster. This movie poster also gives the quote of being "The best vampire movie ever".

Let the right one in

Plot:

Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl. Budgeted at 4.5 million this movie got back $11,227,336. even though the profit margin wasn't high this still was talked about as a great movie to view.

2) The Haunting in Connecticut - 2009

This movie gained great popularity as it was the next step up from paranormal activity movies and the audience were excited to see this different approach to the paranormal side of movies. The poster itself is quite frightening with a boy in the crucifix position stuck to the ceiling while in the background we see a group sitting by a round table almost summoning this demon that is within the movie.

Use of dark colors for this movie poster and a nice eroded design along the edges of the poster giving an old fashion look which may tell the viewer they might see an earlier past within the movie, you can also tell this by the demon boys clothing. and the ones sitting by the table are wearing modern day clothes. Suggesting they are being haunted by an old spirit.

The Haunting in Connecticut

Plot:

After a family is forced to relocate for their son's health, they begin experiencing supernatural behavior in their new home, which turns out to be a former mortuary. This movie was highly praised when it was released and truly deserves 2nd place in this top ten countdown the budget of making this movie was not found, too many different figures were given to indicate a specific and correct figure but the box office figure was good $77,527,732. This gave the movie enough money to concentrate on a sequel that was soon released in early 2013.

1) REC - 2007

Finally we reach the end of our countdown to the top ten movie posters that benefited the movie, REC is an all time favorite and although it may be Spanish subtitled, all the audience's had great things to say about this movie, apart from the English remade version "Quarantine" which received bad ratings this only boosted the popularity of REC because of peoples mentioning of this, the original version. The movie poster is centered with a blonde haired female character looking upwards in a panicked expression, covered in blood.

you see a shadow in the background and to the viewer it is obvious that this is the evil beast that is causing the distress and terror. the caption reads "Trapped, No mercy, No escape. No one gets out alive.", This indicates to the audience that the victims are concealed somewhere within the movie for these demons to attack which heightens suspension and makes the viewer wonder "How did they get there?" and "Will they get out or survive?".

REC

Plot:

A television reporter and cameraman follow emergency workers into a dark apartment building and are quickly locked inside with something terrifying. Only costing 2 million to make it received back $32,492,948, which is a great figure and this movie is well deserved of the number 1 place in our countdown.

Conclusion

Just goes to show that a great movie poster can really help the sales figures and popularity to your production, the key is to grab the viewers attention in any way possible, these movie posters did exactly that and is why they benefited so well.