Digital Arts & Design
Task: Semiotic Analysis
In this week's task, we are required to do a discussion and analysis on the
"Insidious The Last Key" Poster in a group of 3. Specifics on what we should do :-
Analyse with semiotic perspectives
Identify the signs and codes within the text and interpret its meaning
Identify the distinctive concept
Identify its structural relationship between the various referents
Discussion of ideological functions of the signs in text and text itself. (what assumption does it form? and what genre and how is it related)
Done By
Roselle P' ng
Wafiy Bakar
Norazri Johari
Norazri Johari
*P.S. Content written will have significant amount of spoilers. Take this into consideration before reading. Thank you.*
What we will be analyzing on.
Identify the signs and codes within the text and interpret its meaning.
This film features a woman protagonist and her childhood self as shown in the poster above. First, the sentence "CHILDHOOD FEARS NEVER END" indicates that the protagonist of the movie who is now a few decades older is still being haunted by what had happened to her in the past. Meanwhile, the spider web on the bottom of the bed could shows that the protagonist is still being attached to an unsettling feeling that had arose from her past childhood. The spider web is also a key feature in the film as it relates to a whistle given by her late mother to her younger brother during her childhood times to be used in times of distress and it was then found a few decades later to be located in spider webs.
Then the next important point in the poster, which is the word "INSIDIOUS"
The color added which is a RED color can indicate that the movie is going to be not a light but heavy and tense movie, which make sense because the girl who is hiding underneath the bed is seen as someone who is filled with tension and fear. Meanwhile, the word "SI" inside the word "INSIDIOUS" can also mean various things, one of it came from the tagline of Insidious movie itself which is "Insidious is insidious" the "SI" is intended to be seen as "IS" that is why it is emphasized. "Insidious IS insidious".
Identify the distinctive concept (Pragmatics)
The movie "Insidious", taken from general definition means gradually but in a harmful way, that goes to show that it is going to be an unpleasant and it is normal to expect the tension and dark elements to be in this movie even before knowing anything about the movie. The poster then shows a girl under the bed hiding from something scary or perhaps life threatening which is the grim-looking fingers shaped like keys reaching out for her and trying to find her. Furthermore, as seen from the poster, the grim-like fingers only shows 4 of it, leaving 1 missing from the poster itself, that might be related to the movie title itself which is "The Last Key".
Identify its structural relationship between the various referents (Syntactics)
The very first sentence on the poster on top right which is the "CHILDHOOD FEARS NEVER END" means exactly that, conveying that the fear from childhood is still ongoing and never-ending. If the words were to flip to "NEVER END FEARS CHILDHOOD" it will mean something entirely different, it may be someone who is named NEVER END is still in fear of their CHILDHOOD.
Another important sentence in this poster which is the
"INSIDIOUS THE LAST KEY" itself does not have a proper english meaning generally, maybe it might mean there is a last key named insidious but that is not the case in this film as INSIDIOUS is the name of the film, not the name of the last key. In this case, INSIDIOUS is the name of the film and THE LAST KEY indicates one of the many movie episodes that the film INSIDIOUS has.
Discussion of ideological functions of the signs in text and text itself. (what assumption does it form? and what genre and how is it related)
The text "INSIDIOUS" itself already has a sinister and negative effect to it indicating it is not a light-hearted movie to watch, and with the dark theme looking poster, makes it all the more sinister and more dramatic than a comedy and happy go lucky movie. Plus the red color in the text of INSIDIOUS, the SI is in red colored, therefore there is more forceful elements added to the whole poster, red color is often seen as a tense color, either positively in terms of love or negatively in terms of blood, in this case it is related to the word INSIDIOUS making the red color not a very uplifting but a negative and scary element to the whole poster.
The sub title "THE LAST KEY" creates a few assumptions, since the grim-like feature of the fingers which is shaped like a key has 4 only and it seemed like it is trying to find something, and that something is shown as the girl lying underneath the bed, that might create an assumption that the little girl is actually the last key required for the evil supernatural to escape their prison.
As seen from the poster, it is very obvious that the movie genre is a horror because of the dark themed poster and the emotion that is expressed by the little girl in the poster with her holding her teddy bear doll tightly for comfort and the feeling of safety plus, perhaps psychological genre as there is the phrase "CHILDHOOD FEARS NEVER END" which indicates that there is some form of childhood traumatic experience that is left unresolved and still chasing the protagonist.
