THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE POSTER ANALYSIS

COLOUR AND LIGHTINGThe poster has a green glowing vignette effect which creates an eerie effect and shows the film's primary genre is horror, although letting the audience know it is not a full slasher horror because of the colour scheme. Although there is a small amount of red in the blood of the hand prints, it is not a main focus which conveys there is an element of sci -fi and mutilation. The shadows are created by back-lighting which creates a glowing, creepy effect to the figures in the foreground, lighting parts of their face but keeping the main focus a mystery. The pixelated effect around the shadows are also created by the back light and let the audience know there is a screen of frosted glass or something similar between them, connoting they are trapped. The overall colour scheme looks grotty and dirty, which conveys the theme of mutilation and links to the home-made hospital and experiments preformed in a psychotic manor.

TEXTThe text on the poster is minimal but effective, with the tag line being “their flesh is his fantasy” which creates an uneasy feel, letting the audience know that there is some sadistic element to the story, and creates a sense of enigma, making us question who is HE is and what is the fantasy? The human centipede as a title is a binary opposite, as it puts two opposites together, a small creature with a human, making the audience question why they are together and making them want to find out. The font is simple but has been slightly played with to create some off centre, jumbled letters of different sizes, which creates a sense of movement and putting mismatched things together. This links to the genre of mutilation and body parts, as the centipede has a sense of movement.

IMAGEThe image is the main focus of the poster, as it is centred and the text is placed in areas which align with the image to ensure it is the first thing you look at. The body appears to one main person, with 2 other sets of arms and hands attached. The repeated image of the spread out hands on the glass looks like something unusual and creates enigma, making you question what it is, how has it been mutilated, what does it really look like? The face also creates enigma, because you can make out a look of horror on the one face we can see, and the rest of the features and details are blurred out by the silhouetting and the pixelated glass. Overall the image conveys the film will be disturbing and there will be elements of mutilation in it.

COMPOSITIONThe composition of the poster is effective because the face is the first focus, as it is top centred, but you follow the body down from the face and see the elongated body, the multiple arms and hands. The fact that there are a pair of hands at the top, middle and bottom is also effective, because it makes you realise it is such an unnatural and awkward position, that there must be some sort of discomfort and force behind it. The text is positioned troughout the centre at the top and bottom of the image as to not draw awat attention from the image.