Analysis of Review-Layout

The first thing I noticed when looking at the review was the image. It is a Point of View shot from the film which shows a scared woman (mise-en-scene-facial expressions and body language) in a very dark house. This helps tell us that the genre is horror before even reading the review as the image looks quite scary. The image takes up half of the page- just as much space as the actual review takes up. This tells me that the target audience for this review may be working class people who maybe do not have the time to read a very long review or who aren’t interested in every single little detail. Over the image there is a box which tells us some additional facts about the director and his influences for the film.

The font size of the review is very small. However the title “PARANORMAL ACTIVITY” is written in big bold black font and capital letters which makes the title stand out. Also the review is summed up in just three lines of big bold dark red text “PELI LEAVES EVERYTHING TO THE IMAGINATION. IT’S ONLY AS SCARY AS YOU MAKE IT” Once again the difference in the font makes it stand out and this could be written for people who may not want to read the whole review and just want to skip straight to the point. The subheadings are typed in bold such as “verdict” and some key facts are in orange- once again to draw attention to this information. The critics name is in orange however it is not bold therefore it does not stand out as much. This could be because the target audience may not really have a concern about who wrote the review whereas a middleclass audience who either work in the industry or who watch art house films may only trust certain critics reviews.

The review is organised into 4 columns. The first column is split into the facts : release date, certificate, synopsis, director,  running time, cast and then the review begins. It ends in the last column and then appears the verdict and the rating. The rating system Empire uses is stars “★” which is very easy and straight forward to read.