The trailer begins by fading into the production titles and then into the scene of an abandoned industrial park of some sort. The sound of a heavy echoing drum accompanies the transition for dramatic effect, informing the viewer that this trailer is going to be serious and foreboding in its theme. There are straight cuts between landscape shots of the environment with a heavy sound of wind whistling, making it seem more barren and lifeless. You can hear a person’s panting coming into shot through the use of a sound bridge. Everything has a blue tint to add a more melancholic tone to the entire scene that plays out at the start of this trailer.
Eventually it cuts to a shot where the figure of a man runs into eyesight from behind some rubble, as if being chased as he looks behind him. His appearance is accompanied by quick beating of drums to add dramatic tension, and a choir singing in a minor key fades into earshot, giving that gothic sinister sound. Then as the cars appear another track adds to the music being upbeat drums that make the chase tense and fast paced. The shots quicken in pace slightly, ranging from looking at the man running up in a medium shot as it tracks to follow him, to a point of view shot from the cars which has been over cranked, as if this shot is an outer body experience of the person running as he realises his inevitable capture. Eventually the man reaches a warehouse and people stop their cars heavily, and a sound bridge occurs as one male shouts “Kruger! Come on out, you sick bastard!”. The shots become close ups of the opposing characters where the man chasing Kruger shouts “You open this door Kruger!”. This cuts to a reverse shot where Kruger is facing the door and replies “What do you think I did? I didn’t do anything!”. The dialogue adds tension and mystery as to the plot behind this scene and as tension continues to build the intrigue increases.
The shot cuts to the man throwing a Molotov cocktail into the warehouse, where an over cranked shot shows it breaking through the window and setting the entire place on fire. It cuts to a close-up of his feet to a medium shot of the character taking off his coat as the fire blazes around him. This shot has been over cranked to highlight the dramatic scenario, perhaps reflecting the characters view as he witnesses his own demise. It then cuts to him ripping off the coat to reveal a black and red striped sweater, a piece of iconography associated with the Nightmare on
This then eventually cuts to a black screen reading ‘From Executive Producer Michael Bay’ in sharp red serif font, with a slight texture of splattered blood around the text, highlighting the horror theme presented in this trailer. The sounds become reversed drums, giving an eerie element to the dramatic moment of silence as the tension drops for just a moment before beginning its steady climb back up to the crescendo at the end of the trailer. There are then fades to shots accompanied by the same reversed drum, but the transition out of the shots are cuts instead of fades. The first shot is that of three girls in classic looking dresses playing jump rope. However this has been over-cranked as well, adding an eerie tone to the imagery and contrasting elements between the innocence of children and then foreboding dynamic of the editing and sound. The shots start to revolve around the dialogue of a woman saying the words “I’ve been having these dreams about this man… and he’s burnt”. All the shots leading up to the extreme close-up of the distressed young woman contain a sound bridge of her saying this dialogue.
The trailer then cuts to a shot of a street sign post with the name ‘Elm Street’ on it, confirming the conjecture of the audience concerning the basis of the film. Eventually the shots then cut to the extreme close-up of the hand wearing the bladed gloves, running the edge of the blade against the metal tiles, creating menacing screeching sounds that plays to the conventions of a typical horror trailer, where the imagery is as menacing as the sound. This shot reveals the man wearing the bladed gloves moving closer to an innocent looking figure in the background, demonstrating the impending evil. In the background you can hear children singing a nursery rhyme like song with lyrics that relate to the approach of Freddy Kruger, the evil spirit of the man shown at the start of the trailer that kills teenagers and children in their dreams. All of the following images are surreal and sinister in their own way, from the children standing in a cage, to the shot of a boy naked in the freezing cold, to shot of a woman lying in a bath as the bladed gloves rise out of the water, moving towards her.
The pace gets faster after the shot of the young man saying “Don’t fall asleep”, where the cuts between shots become more frequent and the sound of the reversed drums get faster in tempo as well. You can also hear distorted eerie tones that seem to pulsate with the disturbing images as well. There’s a moment of silence before the shot of the boy’s head behind grabbed which has been heavily under-cranked to add to the fright as it happens quickly in an attempt to make the audience jump. From here onwards there’s a sound of reversed whooshing sound that happens every half second where the cuts match the onslaught of audio occurring, that seems similar to an exaggerated blink of an eye. The transitions between shots here are very fast fades to black, to seem like the images are pulsating out of the screen for impact, tension and distress.
Around the point where the young man shouts “wake-up!” continuously you can hear the rise and fall of violins being played in sharp minor tones to add confusion and even more tension. In the mise-en-scene, special effects are used to make the woman appear to be rising out of bed in mid-air, as even being attacked by a phantom of some sort. This confirms the paranormal element of the horror in this trailer as it cuts between the woman being attacked to the silhouette of Freddy Kruger approaching in what appears to be the same warehouse he died in, linking the start of the trailer with the rest. There’s a moment of silence before a loud scream (also playing to the convention of horror trailers) and the image of Kruger is shown, slashing at the screen, where special effects are used to make three slash marks glowing red appear and fade in the text ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ which is similar to the first text in its blood red serif titling, which also has a glowing red vertical directional blur that makes it appear that the text is full of an evil aura. After the only shot of the phantom Freddy Kruger before he attacks a defenceless woman, the same text is used to present the credits and date for the release of the movie, which slowly zooms into focus on the screen.
This trailer is an example of how an abridged scene can be used at the start of a trailer, to give it more of a teaser trailer feel, as the long scene doesn’t give away too much of the plot, but adds tension and intrigue, presenting a window into the narrative of the film.
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