Film Poster Analysis: The Abandoned (2006)

Film Poster for The Abandoned.

Cracks in the baby’s face suggests a broken childhood and cracks in life and family as the film title is “The Abandoned”. The film title could suggest that whoever or whatever has been abandoned has lost it’s identity after being abandoned.

The title graphics are shady and blurred. This can be a suggestion of the childhood being blurred and fragmented. This can also suggest that although the title is blurry, the memory of being abandoned never fades.

The colours on the poster are very dark colours, conventional of horror films, apart from the eyes, which are blue. The eyes seem the only bright part of the poster. Eyes can suggest many things about an individual, like emotions and how a person may be feeling. As they are in colour, this can suggest that they are significant. The eyes are crying blood, which are also in colour, suggesting blood is also significant in the film. The colours were possibly chosen to suggest the genre of the film, which is horror. We know this because dark colours are mainly associated with horror films.

The target audience for this film could be for an older audience as it seems like there are strong themes and some possible upsetting scenes as there is possibly being a baby abandoned and this could be upsetting and inappropriate for a younger audience. Also, the colours can suggest that this will be a dark, scary film and dark colours are associated with death, sadness and scary things. Also, possibly seasons, like winter.

There are some clues in the narrative, like the baby could have been abandoned at a young age. Also, the cracks in the baby’s face could also suggest a fragmented narrative or a fragmented life of the baby, especially as there is cracks in the face of the young child.

The types of characters seem to be broken and young. There is only one character on the poster, which perhaps could be the main focus of the film. The facial expression of the child seems pretty blank and motionless, but they eyes can suggest otherwise. They are a bright colour, perhaps desperate for some emotion and happiness.

There is an enigma to the film poster, the audience do not know why the child is crying tears of blood, or why the eye is bright blue, or even why the child has no colour to the lips and cracks in it’s face. These are the questions that the audience want answered when watching this film.

The colours used for this poster are relevant to the genre of the film. The dark and strong colours are part of the typical conventions of a horror film and tell the audience straight away that this is a horror film. The colours attract the audience because as soon as they see the dark colours, they will immediately know that this is a horror film and may appeal to them because of the genre.

The poster is a portrait poster. The portrait size could suggest to the audience that there is real depth to the film and that it is not a shallow film. It has real depth and meaning to it, and could requite the audience to play close attention to understand the deep concept of the film.

The image is the main part of the poster, and the title of the film is underneath the childs chin, which could suggest that the child has been abandoned of love and mothering hugs, and as the face is starting to crack, the child is becoming even more lonely.

The date of the film release (February 23rd) is a quiet cinematic period, suggesting that it didn’t have such a high budget and didn't want to be in any big competition with any family films which would attract a mass audience. Also, the cracks in the face suggest quite a wintry theme, which could be why the film release is during harsh February winter.

The film poster has the tagline of “Death Never Runs Out Of Time” This tagline can suggest that no matter how old you are, death will always find time to catch it’s prey, and you are never too young to die.

The target audience is probably of an 18+ age. It is probably this age as there are probably strong themes and issues in the film and there seems to be a focus around death

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The poster has been made attractive to the audience because of it’s colours, image and title of the film. All of these have the conventions of horror films which will attract the horror audience to see this film.

Lions Gate and Universal produced this film. These two companies are well known companies across the world and as they are successful, the audience will know that this film will be a success and will want to see it.

The age rating of the film is a 15. Suggesting that the film is not too violent and gory, but it should not be shown to a young audience as it is inappropriate. However, the baby’s cracked face could be an indication the age rating should be higher.

The poster doesn’t seem to list a website. Perhaps it doesn’t have one or maybe wants to keep the film in suspense, instead of looking at it online and finding out more about it online.

The unique selling point of this film poster as that it has a image of a baby with a cracked face on, which hasn’t really been done before and could be quite shocking to the audience. Also, the blurry film title is also different, as it can suggest a lot about the film, like being abandoned was a blur, or the past is all a blur.