Group members 

- Mas Fatin Nadhirah

- Nur 'Izzati

Task:

In a group of three, we are to discuss and analyse “Insidious: The Last Key” movie poster using semiotic perspectives covered in the lecture.

  We need to Identify the signs and codes within the ‘text’ (printed ad) to interpret their meanings.

  Within these codes you need to identify the distinctive concept (pragmatics) as well as its structural relationship between the various referents (syntactics).

  Discuss the ideological functions of the signs in the text and of the text as a whole. What sort of reality does the text construct and how does it do so? What assumptions does it make towards the audience? What is the genre and how does this relate to the text?

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, in particular as they communicate things spoken and unspoken. Common examples of semiotics include traffic signs, emojis and emoticons used in electronic communication, and logos and brands used by international companies to sell us things—"brand loyalty," they call it.

The poster is showing a little girl that seems to be hiding from some sort of inhumane creature that have keys for fingers. This suggest the little girl as the protagonist and the creature as the antagonist of the movie.

The poster are designed with a dark almost monochromatic color theme, which signifies darkness, fear or death, and even give off the creepy setting, making it more dramatic and add the intense feeling to it.

The scene shown in the poster seems to be like it was set up in the little girl’s bedroom, as she hides under her bed. This suggest that the bedroom will be the source of the darkness that is haunting her, because of the tagline that says “Childhood Fear Never End”, which also give audience the idea that the plot of the movie will revolve around the girls having to grow up with her fear haunting her for life.

Spider web under the bed represents that this movie is related to something that is past, like this shows the girl is looking back at her past memories.

The four key finger suggest a creature making the protagonist fear of it and The key suggest the audience that it will play the part of the film which is connected with the film title the insidious, the last key as in the film the key can lock a voice cord and make a person coma and it can unlock a red door.

The key can also can be related with her childhood home a key to unlock the protagonist secret past which in mexico city which is connected with the red bold letter “SI” mean yes in spanish which is also an official language for mexico

The text was designed in red and white. The use of red usually stand for danger and violence which is a typically used in most horror film. Since most of the texts are in white, the texts that are in red are made to stand out more just to highlight the important information of the poster and even a symbolic hint.

The first few highlighted texts was names of previous movies that are produced by the same producer as this particular movie, so it functions to attract the fans of the highlighted movie, and to give them the idea that this movie may have the similar vibe to the named movies that are made.

The movie title has a hidden message within its texts as shown in the poster. The word “INSIDIOUS” was almost all in white except for the two letters that are in red, which is “SI”. The highlighted “SI” is believed to stand for “Spirit Intervention”. It can also be associated to the protagonist past, which happens in Mexico city, where they speak in Spanish. “SI” in Spanish means yes, so it can mean that the last key involve protagonist willingness or even sacrifices.

Childhood fears never ends is basically means that Elise fear never ends in the movie. She's afraid to go back to her home at the first place because of her horrible childhood memories inside the house. It symbolizes that this movie will show the girl's childhood, which has a long-lasting effect that will haunt her even into her adulthood.

The story in “The Last Key” involves Keyface attempting to harness Elise’s ability to interact with the spirit world in order to gain access to “all the red doors.” Keyface doesn’t succeed, of course, as it’s destroyed by Elise and Imogen at the climax of the movie. But all is perhaps not well, because of that red door they walk through at the end. The crucial bit of lore added by “The Last Key” being, then, that the doors can’t just be opened by any person or demon. They have to be unlocked somehow, and Elise seems to be able to do just that, ushering in the various demons from the first film when she used that ability.

The close up of the protagonist face is to clearly show her expression, suggesting that she is experiencing a frightening situation and to create a certain mood for the audience.

The key finger also give audience the idea that the creature may hold a bigger responsibility for a bigger mystery that involve either locking or unlocking some sort of secrets that are waited to be uncovered or locked away, whether it be a mystery box, doors or other things.