Dark Water (2002) trailer review

NAME OF FILM: Dark Water 

YEAR RELEASED: 2002

GENRE OF TRAILER: Horror

MY MARK AFTER VIEWING: 8/10

What happened within the trailer?

The trailer for Dark Water tells of a family that moves into an apartment block which seems nice enough to which a mother and daughter move in. It turns out that multiple murders happened on the site of the apartment and the spirits have come back to seek revenge.

Which positive, clever or interesting aspects do you think you could include in your own trailer? What generic features are fulfilled well?

The editing of the trailer was very quick, it had a good use of collision cutting which cut from slow and picked up a pace whilst cutting between different action sequences within the movie. I'd like to try and recreate that feel of panic for my audiences. The trailer used a small amount of inter titles at the beginning, one of which advertised the same director as The Ring (2002) Hideo Nakata so it helps to appeal to fans of the directors work. I liked the music used, it was nice and jolly at the start but it suddenly turns to this very dark ambient sound which completely throws its audiences off. I'd like to recrerate that false sense of security for my audiences. The music used was also screeching violins and reminded me to the works of Bernard Herman who produced the music for PSYCHO (1960).

Which aspects of the trailer did you think were unsuccessful, and would have put off its target audience? How is it disappointing?

I like the trailer which is why my score was pretty high however the trailer was very dark, which I get is a key aspect of horror movies and they can create a sense of fear but I found it hard to see particular moments.

What was the trailer’s score Why did it receive that mark?

My score for the trailer was 8/10 for the use of collision cutting and the overall pacing of the trailer.  I liked the music and the false sense of security and it stuck to natural horror conventions such as the creepy location and the ghosts. Overall I was quite impressed and thought that whilst some narrative was revealed it did provoke questions which I would have liked answers if I had seen this trailer at the cinema.