The Strangers Teaser Trailer...

The teaser trailer for the Strangers sets the scene, emphasising the isolation of the house involved in the film. It does this by showing a number of different types of houses, with subtitles underneath the pictures explaining why a house such as that one would be chosen to live in. It then goes on to explain that 'some people', making reference to the killers, choose a house for a completely different reason, showing houses that are isolated from any others, and that have been circled in red pen, signifying they've been targeted by the killers. The last picture turns out to be the house which is the main focus of the film. The mise-on-scene shows the house at night, suggested they are even more alone as there isn't going to be anyone walking past this late at night. The music starts off very old fashioned as the pictures of the houses go by, but then becomes very slow and eery, setting the mood for a thriller/horror movie. Even in the house, while the couple are going about their business, and begin kissing, the atmosphere remains extremely tense, only because of the music. The knock at the door signifies the turn in the trailer, as after the words 'you're gonna die' are whispered, the screen goes black, and then the action shots start of the couple being attacked. The entire trailer is edited to look like an old fashioned slideshow, and this plays a part in the sounds later in the trailer, where the music is replaced by the fast paced sound of the slides turning- matched by the extremely fast paced shots - mixed in with the sounds of the characters screaming. There isn't much in terms of a wide variety of camera angles, but this is likely to of been done so as not to take anything away from the seriousness of the film. The mise-en-scene throughout the trailer is used to emphasise the isolation of the couple from safety, with the early shots showing them in the huge house, making them look even smaller and more vulnerable. During the fast slideshow of shots, you see that there are in fact three killers, showing that not only are they isolated, but they are outnumbered as well. The killers are only shown in the slideshow of shots at the end to keep a sense of mystery to their characters. Near the end of the trailer, there is a shot saying that the film is inspired by 'true events'. This claim, while not necessarily completely true, does give the audience a further sense of fear, as the thing which most people find relieving about a horror film is that they know that it is farfetched, and that nothing like that would ever really happen. This relief is taken away by saying that the film is based on things which really happened.

Overall, this trailer is nearing the longest you would expect a teaser trailer to be, but it has the advantage of being a horror. Unlike other film genres, horrors almost always have a generic storyline, 'characters in danger, can they survive?'. Therefore, the audience can be shown more clips of the film, and still feel the need to see it in the cinema. The sound and mise-en-scene all emphasise the genre of the film, while the camera angles are kept relatively simple so the film remains about the storyline and not about the amazing shots.