Saturday, 13 December 2014

'HORRORHOUND' Magazine Analysis

This is the horror magazine ‘HorrorHound’ featuring ‘Scream 4 on its cover, introducing a feature in the magazine. The masthead of the magazine has an effect that seemingly makes it 3D, it is also a bold uppercase piece of typography that is coloured black with white layering for the 3D effect. This is done to create a bold effect, to make the masthead eye-catching and grab the attention of the audience. However, it is also used to connote the darkness and imperfection of horror, as you can see each letter of the masthead is slightly offset from one another, taking slightly different angles and positions. It creates this feel of anxiousness and grunge due to these deliberate effects. The colour scheme of the magazine mainly consists of black, white and red. These are used in horror as colours that have opposing meanings. Black is used to show the darkness, evil and generally convey the villain, which is proven by the main image. White is used to connote the innocence of heroes or heroines and often hope; however, it can sometimes be simply used to clash with black to create eye-catching colour collaboration. In this instance it is used for the parts to stand out such as certain cover lines, straplines and detailing on the masthead. Showing that white is secondary to black on this cover, setting the tone for the magazine suggesting that this is dominated by dark, evil content. The red is used to suggest danger, blood and lust, as well as being another strong colour that will clash with both black and white and that is exactly what it does. All of these put together create a very eye-catching cover due to the amount of colour clashes that are going on.

The main image of the cover consists of the villain from Scream 4, holding a knife to the audience a very bold statement that be an instant appeal to horror fans due to the fact that it indicates a bold horror straight away. This is further backed up by the intense colours in the background. The cover lines use a lot of popular horrors from around the time that the magazine was made (2011) for instance ‘the Walking Dead’ an American TV Series released in 2010, these are features that will intrigue horror readers as they are tapping into the Cultural Dominant Ideology at the time.

The tagline for the main headline is ‘The return of the ghostface’, which shows that this is a sequel of a previous film. It is part of the Scream collection. This also connotes that the antagonist of the film is back and he is not letting up ion any of the horror , he has not and will not change. The sub images follow the same oiled style that the magazine beholds, creating this uncomfortable greasy and grubby feel to the cover, further indicating gore and grittiness, aimed for the enjoyment of their target demographic. They are used to further emphasise the cover lines too, to give them more power on the cover and easier for the audience to relate to. 

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