Trailer Analysis 2 - Blair Witch Project

The found footage thriller/horror Blair Witch Project starts by a shot on a camera held by someone running in an abandoned building. The sole sound of running out of breath during this clip is effective in immediately informing the audience what type of movie this is. The fact that it is also by point of view allows us to empathise for them as we see what they get into later into the film.

The build up of tension appears both in footage and music put together by synchronised editing. The characters' curiosity lead them to the isolated forest and an abandoned house. The moment things go wrong, the characters' speech become high pitched, shaky and mostly questions such as "What's going on?" implying that they have no idea what will happen; that they are all vulnerable. The music score is intense in building up in volume and higher pitch.

Going back to the beginning footage, the character are running around in the abandoned house or forest and screams can be heard; from this gore and violence is expected. The selling point in the trailer which is exactly the same as the first movie, is that a supernatural, demonic character is killing them off one by one. This concept shown in trailers seem to appear in most thriller/horror or supernatural/horror films.