Audience theory evaluation

Our trailer is in the thriller/horror genre, this provides a lot of instances where the audience could be frightened especially as the film has such normal locations such as a pathway or a house used in it, the idea that a murder could potentially escape and break into peoples houses could make people fearful of there area and could make people remain indoors and become very shaken by the idea. This idea relates to George Gerbner's Cultivation theory, especially his Mean World syndrome, this idea suggests that violence seen in the media is mirroring the real world, making the real world more dangerous than it actually is. Our trailer conforms to this idea as we have a hooded murder, which could relate to gangs, this could make people scared of hooded people, this is also the case as later in our trailer we have the masked murderer enter a house at night, and terrorise the residents inside it, this could make the audience fearful of the dark and being alone in the house and suggests anyone could enter their home at any time.

In our trailer we aimed to promote a fearful depiction of the world in which the main antagonist, the murderer/escaped convict is able to go anywhere, as well as this we feature a new report and the lines "Based on a true story" which could potentially lead some to believe the idea. As suggested in the Hypodermic needle model in which an audience is fed information or shown something and they immediately start believing its true/or accept the idea.

Our trailer also makes use of the Uses And Gratifications Theory, this theory suggests the audience is not passive, but is actively involved in interpreting the media shown to them, from this it also suggests that the audience is responsible for choosing the media to suit there own needs. In relation to my trailer, I believe that people would watch my trailer for a number reasons which are: Entertainment, because as a horror/thriller it is meant to frighten, but as a film its primary use is in entertainment, the trailer also provides a kind of escape from the real world, as the murderer appears to have free reign, but it provides a worst case scenario for a person being trapped inside a house with a murderer. A audience member my also be able to relate to some of the characters in the film because they are based on ordinary people doing normal things like watching TV, this humanises the characters, and while they might not be people to aspire to be, they are likely to reflect the audiences life.

Our trailer does include a couple of female leads, this may suggest to some that the 'male gaze' may be used in this trailer, 'the Male Gaze' is a media theory produced by Laura Mulvey in 1975, the theory suggests that an audience has to view a film from a heterosexual male's point of view, this theory suggests women on screen are objectified, in our film we did not want this idea to come across, there are several films in the horror genre that do but they are normally comedy as well as horror, examples include: Piranha 3D and Scary Movie. Our film features the female leads sitting in a long shot watching TV, this takes the attention away from them and focuses the audience on the developing story and the TV, which is what we want.