There are many horror magazines on the market nowadays however their content is quite general, and doesn't really cater for those interested in a certain genre; such as psychological horror. From the popular magazines on the market, I have researched into 3 different brands which have a moderate proportion of the magazine dedicated to psychological horror in comparison to others.
Moodboards
This mood board below is compiled of certain features that we found were prevalent in the majority of horror magazines. From our research, we found that the most important features that could make the magazine representative of the genre were...
Key Features
Font
- illusion of dripping to portray the effect of blood dripping off the writing, conforming within the horror genre, by which blood and gore is a sub-genre.
- looks as though its been hand drawn, to create the theme that its rough.
- no specific outline to the font, to make the font look jagged.
- thick font, rather than thin to contrast to sub story fonts.
When analysing the fonts of psychological horror magazines, I found that we should use a font which plays on the thought of it being hand drawn, using faded ink as it created the mysterious theme that psychological horror is based on. I also identified a thick bold font to be used for the masthead, which usually connotes the theme of blood dripping down a wall. Although our sub genre isn't blood and gore, which is associated with this font, the majority of horror film magazines use the feature, suggesting that we should use it too as it is a proven feature to make the magazine successful.
Images
- either close up or head and shoulders shot used for the front cover image
- usually central of the page
- facial expression that summarises their role within the film
- Usually the antagonist's face
From our analysis, its prevalent that the majority of psychological horror magazines use a central close up shot of the antagonist. Within the psychological sub genre, many magazines use a shot of their antagonist looking up which features in the film, so that the audience feel the same terror the protagonist does. Most central images are also shot in low key lighting with an effect on, to make them look more scary and appealing to the audience.
Layout
- central image
- masthead fills top quarter of page
- bottom quarter advertises other films
- sub stories fill the outside of the page
Cover Stories
- usually a number to represent how many films are featured
- names of films and actors/actresses featured
- contrasting colour to the main background
From our research, its best to keep the page as simple as possible in terms of layout, as most horror magazines only feature the names of featuring films to grab the attention of the audience. For our magazine, we agree to use a bold number featuring on the left hand side; which will show how many films are included in this weeks publication, then the a 2 rows of film names along the bottom, to ensure the cover appeals to a broad spectrum of psychological horror consumers.
Colours
- deep
- dark
- red
- black
- orange-yellow/fire
- contrasting
- dark background, coloured font
The majority of psychological horror magazines conform to the overall horror genre, in the sense that they use dark reds and black as the background and a contrasting brighter colour that stands out on the dark background colour. Commonly, yellow and white is used for the font colour, which is attention grabbing when the magazine is competing on a shelf alongside other magazines. From our research the background colour is usually a shade from the main image, which we are considering using for our magazine cover. Personally, we like the images used when adopting a monochrome colour scheme however believe the contrasting colours stand out more on the background. We plan to combine these techniques to re-create something similar to pre-existing covers.
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