Sorority Row Poster Deconstruction

The top three quarters of the poster for Sorority Row is built is triangle. The background depicts a large house on fire, the dark point roof of it creating the top point of the triangle. It is almost as if the building is being held up by the pile of figures dominating the centre of the poster; this inkling is confirmed with the title of ‘Sorority Row’, it is the girls that make the Sorority, not the house.

The figures are shrouded in a bright light that makes them all appear quite similar. There is little clothing; the light leaves the girls looking very alike, taking away defining features such as hair and skin colour, even their makeup appears to be the same. Despite this, each is clearly conventionally attractive and feminine. The use of makeup, the apt amount of skin on display and presence of long hair on all of the girls mean that they are going to most likely conform to general stereotypes of young women in sororities. Interestingly, two of the characters appear to be wearing the same bracelet, one is holding the others arm; this could suggest a more complex relationship or bond between them than the others.

The expressions on the faces of the characters are very alike. There is a united sense of worry and anxiety, their positioning suggests something along the line of comforting one another and sisterhood. Their closeness implies a shared connection gain through some horrific event as suggested by the background.

The bottom quarter of the poster features the tag line title and credits. It does not however feature the names of actors in the film, this is common among horror movie trailers as famous star are rarely used. Well known people distract from the storyline and make the actual horror less credible. This also does not isolate one main character among the girls, suggesting that they all play a similar sized part.

‘Sisters for life... and death’, gives new meaning to the classic phrase. The audience knows from this tag line that some, if not all of these women are going to be killed in the subverted theme of the Sorority. Before the disruption they lived as close friends, as sisters, and now they will die in the same away, they will die together.

The typography used to create the title includes a Latin character to enforce the word Sorority, making reference to the lettering and names of actual sororities. The text has been distressed and a similar red line has been drawn underneath it. The same red is used on the makeshift weapon within the title; this gives the audience an idea into the slasher genre of the film and of the murder weapon.

-Meg

Costume Research - Party Scene

We examined party scenes in terms of the costumes worn so that our characters would have believable costumes while they partied.

Research of films, coupled with our questionnaires concerning appearances of characters, made it clear that female characters must be physically appealing in costume and body in order to attract males, and stylish to the point of being aspirational for females so that the target population is as broad as possible. It could also be considered that the characters have sexualised costumes in order to appeal to a sense of justice when the character dies in audiences who consider sexual character immoral. This is clear in films such as 'Sorority Row', in which the main protagonists are all thin attractive girls, and they dress in a promiscuous nature that shows a lot of flesh. In this photo, for example, they are dressed for a pyjama party, and are therefore showing a lot of their legs and stomachs. Although our party is not pyjama themed, it maintains the same standards of dress.

This is seen across all genres, such as in the comedy 'Mean Girls', in which it is noted that in "girl world" costume parties are cause to dress provocatively. This can be seen in a skin-tight leather styled cat suit and a negligee style dress, as well as accessories such as animal ears. Styled hair and make up is also evidently important.

In 'Night of the Demons', this is shown through the sexualised image of a cat shown in this image. Even though the party in our film is not a costume party, the provocative dress is obvious in the low cut and tight outfit that could be lingerie. The styling of hair and make up also acts to make the character look more attractive, and we use this kind of costuming for our party scene.

In this party scene in 'Superbad', the female characters are not in the same level of provocative clothing. However, they are still wearing form fitting clothing that reveals some flesh such as lower stomach, chest and arms. This shows the stylish nature of party clothes in that they usually reveal some form of flesh in order to be seen as attractive, although there are varied degrees of clothing. For our party scene we will include short skirts and some visible chests, although we will not go to the same extent as the image above. This is especially true of the main protagonist who will survive as she must appear more moral, so is in a less revealing costume.




-Emily