I found some trailers from the 1930 - 1960 period to look at ideas and techniques used in the genres of Science fiction, Horror and Film Noir.




War of the Worlds 1953 trailer – similar machine against human / Sci Fi theme, use a lot of bright colours and scenes of machines falling from the sky and emerging from the meteorites. Also depicts a scene where the humans are trying to leave their invaded city but turn against each other to save themselves and escape.





Psycho 1960 trailer – Uses soundtrack to describe the atmosphere and the chill of the horror genre. In classic black and white and skips between scenes to match the intensity of what the music offers. A good selection of scenes of Bates as he explains ‘I just get mad sometimes’ and final shot of someone peering through a hole in the wall suggests the film returns to basic ideas of horror as a predator stalking it’s victim but also that there might be a deeper meaning.




Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956 trailer – uses dramatic music and an intense voice narrator to describe the basics of an invasion of creatures from another planet and the main character running wildly and exclaiming that the human race is in danger. They don’t reveal the creatures though, which creates some of the suspense and fear to the audience.




The Invisible Man 1933 trailer – Reveals how the character wrapped in bandages helps the audience focus on what ‘ the invisible man’ has to say in dialogue scenes and therefore uses what the audience recognise as the terror because it later reveals the character to unwrap those bandages so that the audience are left with a psychotic voice that travels around the room and objects becoming inanimate by themselves. A similar technique to Psycho, using the voice or sound as the weapon of horror.




The Touch of Evil 1958 trailer – Mostly narrated using the technique of revealing big actors and the fact that it is directed by Orson Wells. It also has some action scenes thrown in to make it clear it is a thriller but the narration does a lot of the promises in hyping up the film and how the audience will react to this film.

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