Shutter Island (2009) Trailer Analysis

Name of Film: Shutter Island
Year Released: 2009
Genre of Trailer: Mystery/ Thriller
My Mark after viewing: 9/10

A detective and his partner are asked to investigate a missing patient at a mental institution, patients that are said to be the most dangerous in the world.

This trailer is brilliantly done and has a lot of clever and interesting aspects that I would like to take into consideration for my own trailer. The dialogue over the shots is a great way of tying the story together, it makes it easy to follow which is good for a teaser trailer due to the amount of shots. The pacing is very important to this trailer, it has a real good flow to it and this is due to collision cutting. Slow to quick is the general pace which makes the slow editing more tense and the quick editing a lot more panicked. This really allows you to get in to the feel with the trailer making you heart race in time with the shots, this is further helped by the strong music. Every change of shot or important piece of impact the music matches, making these parts intensified to the audience. There is also a subtle yet clever use of gore, throughout the trailer there are facial features of some patients distorted and often flashes of murdered victims, creating a stronger sense of danger and adding to the horror conventions.

However, although this is a very well done trailer there are some aspects that I think were not successful. As a whole the trailer was a little hard to follow, it was fragmented due to the randomness of the shots, they were going at a very quick rate going from situation to situation, as a member of the audience I thought it was difficult to stay on track of what was going on. Although, I think this may be deliberate due to the genre of the film which is primarily mystery, it is purposely confusing you so it intrigues the audience to go watch the film.

I gave this trailer an 9/10 because I think it has been brilliantly executed. Everything seems to be eloquently placed and timed so you can get a real feel for the film but by not giving too much away and this is done by using collision cutting, pacing and music to it's very best. Very good trailer.