Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman
Tag
line (n).: a catchphrase or slogan, especially as used in
advertising.
Taglines.
Some may not read them.
Hell, some may not even
see them.
What
draws the eye in a movie poster is the art, after all. The images.
The depictions of gruesome spectacles. Representations of mysterious
events. Portraits of helpless victims. Pictures of pursuing
monsters. Illustrations of dark, tight places in the middle of
nowhere.
And,
yet, posters' taglines can be quite suggestive—and quite
terrifying—in their own right and in their own way.
They
have a way of getting at the very heart of a story. For writers in
search of ideas, taglines can also suggest stories; they can be
muses. In addition, they can point to the roots of fear, to the
sources of horror, to the bare bones beneath the flesh of fear. Look,
here! This is what
frightens—and here!
This is why it scares.
Some fans love you to
death (13 Fanboy [2020])
Former
scream queens from the Friday the 13th
series are hunted by a real[-]life killer who doesn't understand that
it's all make believe (IMDb).
The
tagline suggests how a popular saying can inspire the idea for a
movie—and, perhaps, even much of its plot.
They
look just like us (Freaks [2018[)
A
bold girl discovers a bizarre, threatening, and mysterious new world
beyond her front door after she escapes her father's protective and
paranoid control (IMDb).
The
tagline suggests that those who are regarded by “us” as being
somehow “other” than we are differ from “us” not only in
their behavior (which is, most likely, violent and threatening), but
also in their appearance, making them easily recognizable. When such
an assumption proves to be false, fear is heightened: we are being
menaced by “others” from whom we cannot differentiate ourselves:
we cannot tell the good guys (“us”) from the bad guys (“them”).
Therefore, someone who looks like “us” could be a violent,
threatening “other,” intent upon harming or killing “us.” Our
situation, already desperate, has become much more dire!
Seven
miles below
the
ocean surface
a
crew is trapped
and
being hunted
(Underwater
[2020[).
A
crew of aquatic researchers work to get to safety after an earthquake
devastates their subterranean laboratory. But the crew has more than
the ocean seabed to fear (IMDb).
The
tagline occupies four successive lines, breaking the thought it
conveys into four fragments, breaks which emphasize each part:
distance, location, dangerous situation, heightened danger. The
tagline calls our attention to the desperate nature of the
characters' predicament. It's bad to be seven miles below the surface
of the sea; it's worse to be trapped, and its worse yet to be hunted
while one is trapped in an isolated, hard-to-reach location. The
tagline taps universal fears: the fear of being alone (monophobia),
the fear of being trapped (claustrophobia), and the fear of being
hunted (anatidaephobia). If the tagline applied to a novel, rather
than to a movie, it would seem to condense several chapters into
succinct, terrifying phrases. The tagline also implies several
questions, arousing suspense: Will the characters escape their
hunters? Will they escape their trap? Will they be able to return to
the surface? Will they make it home again, alive and whole?
Evil
knows your name (Impervious
[2015).
Katie
recently moved to a new house. In the basement, she finds old photos
of a family who lived in the house and were all murdered. When she
starts to investigate their story, frightening things begin to happen
(IMDb).
We
often think, That couldn't happen to
me. We tell
ourselves, Bad things only happen to
other people.
In other words, we lie to ourselves. We fib to protect ourselves from
the truth that terrible things could
happen to us. We prevaricate to defend ourselves from the knowledge
that bad things happen to everyone,
the “good” and the “bad” alike. Being “good” is no
protection, just as being “bad” doesn't necessarily (and
certainly doesn't always) cause bad things to happen to bad people.
Sometimes, crime does
pay. We also like to believe that the odds against something like
that
(whatever “that” may be) happening to us are astronomical.
(That's what young people are saying now about dying from a
coronavirus infection.) When it comes to evil, to suffering, to
death, we don't take things personally; we prefer
abstractions—statistics can be comforting; news reports about
“others,” about “them,” can be reassuring. But what if evil
knew your name? No my name. Not any name. Your
name. What if evil developed a personal interest in you,
specifically? What if evil targeted you,
individually? What if evil hunted you,
personally? The lies die. Truth survives. And the truth is that you
are in danger. You may
be targeted. Evil know your
name!
Movie
poster taglines. Don't overlook them.