Project: Video Jockey - Hard Candy

Hard Candy is one of my true all time favorites when it comes to movies. The intense psychological standoff between the main characters completely immerses you within the movie and leaves you questioning who is right and who is wrong all the way through until the very end, and even after that you're left with a fair amount of questions that I probably shouldn't go into any detail or else I would go off on a ramble of scrambling long words and end up with nothing of any particular significant relevance.

BUT! This bit of research has little to do with the content of the movie itself, but rather this deceiving poster made 'for' the movie. Everything about my chosen song is creepy, intense, dark, and all sorts of negative stuffs :). When you look at this poster all those words come to mind, except maybe intense as it actually looks quite calm. But then again the whole point of this poster is to deceive so that's alright.

I like to think that the ultimate (and sometimes lazy) form of fearful moments are when you show a little, but think a lot. By showing very little you allow the audience to use their imagination to fill in the gaps, and most people usually assume the worst when they're left to contemplate which is perfect for anything that's meant to be scary. I think because you don't see the girl's face you're left with this wonder of whether she really is who she appears to be. While this isn't exactly following the "show a little, think a lot" theory, it does create an element of fear by making the audience keep guessing and always leaving them uncertain.

The giant bear trap helps with the creation of a dark atmosphere quite heavily because it is quite dirty and simply the fact that it's a giant blinking bear trap! I also really like how the grungy style of the poster doesn't overpower anything because of the subtlety of the textures, but still lets you know that this is scary, this will make you dispense bricks from within your bowels.

I've mentioned before about using contrasting figures in the sense that I use something that is meant to be happy and nice, but done in a creepy style. This poster does exactly that by showing what appears to be just a little girl. Then you put her on an overly exaggerated bear trap and you've got this very disturbing symbolic meaning about how this girl is seen as prey for predators, but if you thought this was going to be easy candy, you'd be dead wrong. Basically speaking, the girl is bait and the bear trap is showing that this is a trap they will severely regret once you step into it.

If you haven't watched it yet I seriously recommend you give it a look. Especially if you're into your intense psychological thrillers. Oh, and if you happen to be male I would recommend you to be ready for a very... disturbing scene.