Horror magazine analysis

FANGORIA Fangoria magazine is an internationally distributed American film fan magazine specialising in the different genres of horror, slashers, splatter gore, and exploitation film. It’s been in regular publication since 1979. The magazine was originally supposed to be called Fantastica, focusing on fantasy films.

However, another magazine company (Fantastic Films) contended that its younger audience would be confused by the similar names of the two magazines.

The publishers of Fantastica were then without a usable name, which resulted in the creation of Fangoria. The first issue was still based around the idea of ‘fantasy films’. When the magazine started to go downhill after the 6th issue, the publisher decided to start delving into the horror genre to feature in the magazine. This made the magazine more successful, and by 1985 Fangoria started branching into other media outlets like TV, films, radio, and comic books. This particular cover I’m looking at is issue #310. You can immediately see that it has the old school style of horror magazines. There is one main image featured on the cover, and three other smaller ones all with captions. Fangoria has the classic large masthead, which is coloured with an ombre effect of yellow to red. The masthead consists of different colours in most issues, usually either red, yellow, white, or orange, which is also the colour scheme of the magazine. The only colours featured on the cover of Fangoria are on the yellow to red spectrum, aside from white and black. One technique Fangoria uses on the cover to capture the reader’s attention is the use of famous actors’ names in cover lines. It’s common knowledge that if a person is a large fan of a certain film/actor then when they see their name on the cover of a magazine or poster, they’re more likely to want to buy it. A lot of people buy a magazine for the first time because they see a recognisable name on the cover. Despite the magazine being reasonably old, the cover was never too overwhelming and it tended to be quite simplistic compared to a lot of other magazines at that time.

SCREAM Scream magazine claims to be ‘The world’s scariest publication’, featuring ‘blood, guts, gore & more’. Scream horror magazine is an international print and digital full colour magazine, featuring everything horror related. Scream is published bi-monthly, based in the UK, and worldwide subscriptions to Scream are available to order on their website.

Each issue claims to take a well-written, informative approach to popular subjects, including articles, reviews, previews, interviews with big names, and several behind the scenes features & set-reports of some of the horror greats. There is also a review section which covers recent DVD/Blu-ray releases. Scream magazine is definitely more online, with various different social networking sites to interact with the readers. This is a good way to gain recognition because it’s so easy for people to access different content online. With the magazine being available digitally, it allows the magazine to be published worldwide so anyone can buy and read it. The target audience for this magazine would be older teens and young adults. Whilst years ago it was looked down upon when young people accessed horror related content, these views still reside slightly. If a child got hold of this magazine today and read it, I think a lot of people would still be shocked. Parents don’t want their innocent children looking a graphic gore, with the fear that it would corrupt their child. Physically, this magazine is quite similar to Fangoria magazine. The colour scheme consists of red, yellow, white, and black. Red is used a lot in horror magazines because it’s often used to represent blood, and since the horror genre features a lot of gory content, it fits well. Rather than having one main feature image on the cover, like most other magazines, Scream has a handful of different smaller images tied together with different logos and small mastheads. Whilst usually the one image on the cover works well, I also think that this case works well. There a few different widely recognised famous faces, along with different film titles to attract readers’ attention. When you recognise one title you like, you assume that you’re also going to

like the other titles because it’s relevant. Though Scream isn’t extremely mainstream, I do think that it’s successful within the horror magazine genre.

EMPIRE Empire magazine is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. It is the biggest selling film magazine in the United Kingdom, and is also published in the United States, Australia, Turkey, Russia, Italy, and Portugal. Empire reviews both mainstream films and art films. A regular feature since issue #167 is the main feature, which is a two-page essay on a film selected by Empire. Looking at this issue’s cover in particular, you’re immediately presented with the main cover image and the large cover line. Empire almost always uses only one image on the cover, which stretches across the whole page. The large, usually white, cover lines are also a regular appearance on the cover. The colour scheme of the magazine cover usually depends on the colours in the main image. This is to make sure all of the colours on the page complement each other, and are easy to read. I think this is a really good idea. Whilst using the same colour schemes every issue can be successful for some magazines, making it more recognisable, I think changing it up is a good way to attract new readers every month/week. It also keeps existing readers interested, as they’re not seeing the same things every issue. The masthead stays one font and size every issue, and it usually also goes behind the focus of the main image. Though readers can’t see the whole masthead clearly, it’s still extremely obvious what magazine it is due to the font type. I think Empire is successful in making the magazine recognisable every issue through colour, font and layout. There is a banner above the masthead, which advertises some of the content inside.

This is to attract different audiences based on their preference of films. The barcode of the magazine is neatly on the corner, not taking away from anything else on the page. Overall, when you look at an Empire magazine you can immediately tell that it’s a successful magazine due to the lack of advertisement. People already know that they’re going to like the magazine without knowing exactly what’s inside.