Suspense creation in horror film trailers

Abstract The promotional objective of horror film trailers is substantially supported by the creation of suspense, which emotionally involves audiences and arouses thrilling expectations about the upcoming feature film. This paper aims to examine suspense in this telecinematic genre by studying the individual semiotic layers of visual images, spoken and written words, as well as music and sound effects. The qualitative analysis is based on a dataset comprising the standard theatrical trailers of the 30 top-grossing horror films in the USA between 1973 and 2022. With the help of textual excerpts and screenshots, it is shown that suspense is triggered in both the diegetic and non-diegetic contexts by emotional cues throughout the multi-layered telecinematic discourse. Techniques such as restricted camera viewpoints, cataphoric pronouns, and noises by unseen creatures suspensefully raise anticipation of terrifying narrative events, while the corresponding resolution of the conflicts is delayed until the release of the full movie.