Fonts Used in Horror Films

Red font is often used to connote blood or the supernatural. The choice of font used is small in width and the fade transition links to the supernatural element of the genre.

The font used here is Weiss titling font.

The colour red is used to connote blood and links to the genre of horror as it could symbolise the supernatural and death. The shadow effect used creates a reflection on the words which could connote ghost connotations or another being and because it is accompanied with an eerie violin sound it sets the scary tone for the audience instantly which could be effective in creating fear from the very start.

The font dissolves into smoke, which in an effective transition as it creates an eerie effect and again relates to the horror transitions.

This font is from the film ‘I See You’ (2019) and the font used is again in red but is in a less professional font style which looks almost hand written and suggests a low budget. The font is shaky, making it seem like a hand held camera effect. (Perhaps conveying more realism)

The font then changes to a more white block serif font which makes it more generic than horror but the sound effects used as the font changes is very orchestral and eerie which puts the viewer on edge which is conventional of horror.

This is from ‘Alien’ (1979), a plain generic serif font is placed on a black speckled background with a shadow across the middle. This could connote space or another world. It is also accompanied by eerie music which relates back to the horror genre. As the title sequence progresses, there is a mystery/enigma where the title of the film comes up very slowly which almost acts as an alien script that we may not understand.