'SCREAM' horror magazine analysis

Scream is a weekly British comic magazine with a horror theme. The cover page above is highly stereotypical and fits most horror genre conventions. Firstly, the masthead is placed in the top third of the page, conventional for most magazines in general, however what makes it more horror related is the font used. The font is bold and eye-catching and appears to look although it’s ‘dripping’ as it’s supposedly meant to be viewed as though it’s written in ‘blood’. This fits well with the ‘slasher’’ genre and connotes the body horror we see within gory horror films. It is outlined in yellow which usually connotes sunshine and ‘happiness’ however on a horror magazine cover it connotes pus and maybe even vomit. Although the title is ‘dripping’ it’s still very clear to read and conventional as its red, connoting danger and blood. The main image takes up most of the cover page. The image itself is spooky and of course connotes death as it’s a skull, however skulls don’t normally have eyes and therefore it symbolises the idea that the dead are still around to ‘haunt’ us or ‘watch’ us. The eyes of the skull act as a direct mode of address as they are looking directly at the audience which creepily invites us in as we feel a sense of interaction. The skull stands out tremendously against the black background. The colour black itself connotes death, mystery and also usually represents evil against good (which is portrayed through the colour white). The tagline ‘Blood, Guts, Gore and More’ describes to the target audience what the magazine holds for them inside making them feel as though they want to read/see more. The typical audience for this gory horror magazine is adults between the age of 18 and 50. Scream is a nostalgic magazine for horror fans to look back to films that they loved from their youth; this is shown from the words ‘Trilogy Examined’. The cover lines down the left hand side indicate the films that are going to be reviewed in the magazine, and the writing at the bottom does the same thing, it’s also draws in fans of the films or people advertised. The cover lines down the left hand side are presented on a ‘film reed’ which is in a deep red. The fact that the film reel actually has blood spots around it highlight that its meant to represent blood and gore which fits perfectly with the magazine genre. Scream has mentioned ‘A Serbian Film’  which highlights that this magazine is for a mature audience as the film is so gory and controversial that it  has been banned in Spain, Finland, Portugal, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand,  Malaysia, Singapore and Norway and temporarily Brazil.