Trailer Analysis

Film: The Woman in Black: Angel of Death
Released: January 2015
Directed by: Tom Harper

The Woman in Black: Angel of Death (2015) is the sequel to The Woman in Black (2012) and I am going to be analysing the trailer for it. The trailer shows a group of people, including a number of orphaned children and their carers who are being evacuated to the British countryside in the outbreak of WWII. The house that they are taken to is Eel Marsh House, the same setting as the first film. As the children start go to go missing, one of the carers realises that something is wrong with this house.

This trailer is a little longer than most trailers at 2 minutes and 31 seconds long. This is because it takes a long time to build up the suspense which only makes the collision cutting more effective. For example, even though it is only a bird at the window, because it is so sudden it really makes you jump. The soundtrack for the trailer intensifies the creepiness, at the start it’s very simple piano music which then cuts to being purely a drumbeat which sounds like a heartbeat whilst there is dialogue going on. I think that this works well because the dialogue helps to set the tone of the film. The old gramophone music that then comes in is really effective because it could be diegetic music but the rest of the house is silent and it makes it really eerie.

Most people watching this trailer will have either seen The Woman in Black, or at least know the story which is why I think they can get away with showing her in the trailer as much as they do. If this was a one off movie and not a sequel, I think that they would’ve been more careful with what they showed so as not to give the major plot away.

After watching this trailer, my heart was beating really fast and I felt paranoid about walking round my house in the dark. I think that this shows that the trailer is effective as a horror trailer; it makes you shudder. I would give this trailer an 8.5/10 for effectiveness because of this