Horror Film Poster Analysis 3

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Director: Samuel Bayer

Country: America

Genre: Slasher

Where critics didn’t particularly like Jackie Earle Haley’s incarnation of Freddy Krueger in this 2010 remake, he did do a good job on the posters. Everything is there: all of Freddy’s icons; his fedora; his sweater; and of course his Clawed Glove. This after all is a remake, so everyone that sees the poster needs to see that all of their favourite things about the original are still there. Even the name of the film is unchanged, and if looked at carefully, there are subtle references to previous films in the series.

The font is very similar to the one used in the title of the last film in the series Freddy vs. Jason, and the tagline “Welcome to your new nightmare” may be a reference to the title of the 1994 film Wes Craven’s New Nightmare or it may also be a slight reference to Alice Cooper’s album Welcome to My Nightmare.

There is a slight glimmer of light on Freddy’s glove, highlighting his weapon of choice, so you know the film involves Freddy killing people with it, and even if you don’t know the film series too well, you can still tell this man is a psychopath and killer by the presence of the blade, and by the slight grin on Freddy’s face.

Freddy’s jumper is worn, implying that he has been in waiting since the last film and has made a return to wreck havoc once more after staying dormant for 7 years. This of course is a complete polar opposite to Freddy, he himself hasn’t aged, he hasn’t become any less skilled in his ‘work’ or weakened in any way, unlike his jumper. The background also appears to be (thanks to the hand smudges) the wall from the first film that Freddy came out of in the first film, albeit very worn.

And the lighting around the top and bottom fades away, making the poster resemble cliché dream sequences in other films and television programmes where the camera fades around the frame, and the lighting becomes a slightly different colour. This makes the viewer feel like they are staring into either their own or someone else’s dreams, and suddenly this unfamiliar character appears quite strange and unnerving; “How did you get into my dreams?” The observers ask themselves. (This fading is more apparent around the edges of the full artwork here).

You can’t see a lot of the dream warrior’s face, but that makes him seem a lot more mysterious and evil. Brad Fuller (producer), early in the film’s development, mentioned Freddy would be a lot more horrifying in this remake, and the poster certainly shows this. There is (for a horror poster) quite a lot of light, but it only softly highlights the iconic costume pieces, and the burns on Freddy’s face. There is a some red, which as we know is a symbol of death and blood; staples of all slasher films. There are even blood splats on the title to confirm this. The light itself is yellowish in hue. It is said that the colour yellow in dreams represents struggle; in Asia yellow is associated with scared feelings; and in everyday life yellow is used as a warning colour. All of these can apply to the film and sum it up nicely.