30 Days of Night (2007) Class Trailer Review

30 Days of Night (2007)

Mark after viewing: 9/10

What happened in the trailer?

Starts with a woman getting dragged out of her home by one of the vampires. Then sets the scene of the vampires in the Arctic and the fact that night lasts for 30 days. A man gets attacked and then the police are shown talking to a criminal who knows what’s about to happen to them which introduces the main characters. Then we see quick montages of the vampires attacking people and the people trying to survive.

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

The trailer contains quick montage to make it fast paced to build the tension of the audience while they are watching it. It starts with a jump scare to catch the audience’s attention as it would not be expected and then introduces the plot for the film. It uses collision cutting cleverly and finishes with lots of explosions in quick scenes so not to lose the attention of the audience. The camera quality makes it nice looking so it’s athletically pleasing and the grubby filter gives it that extra quality to make it gritty and make the audience uncomfortable. The vampires are not shown too much which builds tension and apprehension as the audience would want to find out more about them. The inter-titles don’t give too much away but sell the idea of the film. They also change to red towards the end which connotes danger and has blood animation on the text to show the brutality of the film. The music builds after the nail on the record is shown which is when the sequences speed up and more action is shown, again this builds tension.

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

There are too many clips put together at one point in the trailer which the target audience might think was revealing too much of the films plot. It is quite a long trailer compared to others which might make viewing it a big boring after a while, but as it is quick paced and keeps the audiences’ attention, this point doesn’t really matter to the majority of viewers. There are also too many fades which breaks up the tension in the trailer by a fraction which intense horror fans might find boring. 

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

The average score in the class was 8/10. This is because it is generally a great action horror trailer. The use of inter-titles build tension, along with the jump scare at the start which would make anyone pay attention straight away, as it isn’t expected. This is not normally used at the start of horror trailers which is what makes this trailer unique.