Analysis of existing horror openings.By Sophie Bennett.

Women in black.

Women in black.In this shot at the start it shows the children playing in there room. They look very innocent and as a viewer you can suggest that they do not know what is going to happen yet.

This master shot is not related to the film gender ‘horror’ because it is not scary. However because of the background music being a nursery rhyme which are used in horrors a lot, makes the atmosphere scary.

Women in black.

In this shot it shows the three girls looking towards something. However as a viewer you do not know what they are looking at. This is called an enigma code which makes you think of the unknown. From this shot you know that they children are looking at something but you don’t know what yet so it makes the audience want to carry on watching the rest of the film.

The décor that is established in this shot shows that the house is old fashion. Old fashion houses are commonly where horror films are set.

Women in black.Throughout the opening of Women in black there are close up shots of doll’s faces. This suggest that the doll’s are important in this opening sequence and that something later on in the opening will happen in relation to the doll’s.

Also the doll’s could be used to emphasize the children’s innocents. However dolls are very common in horror films.

The doll’s could also be representing what is going to happen to the girls because the children at the start are in control of the dolls and then the children loose control and are then controlled by someone else. Another reason is that the dolls are broken when the children walk over them and they smash which shows that they are dead and then following this the children die.

Women in black.

The shot showing the window suggest that something is going to happen related to the window itself. However this is another enigma code because the audience do not know what yet. This makes the viewer watch on to see what happens.

Following the window shot you see a shot of the girls jumping out of the window. It can be suggested that this is because they are under control of someone else.

Se7en.

Se7en

During the film se7en there is a number of quick, fast cuts of a variety of different shots. The objects within the shots are very close up and the viewers do not have much knowledge of what is actually going on in the opening as no information about the story line or the character.

Se7en

The titles within the opening of the film se7en are flickering and white against a black background. Some of the titles are also shown on the shots themselves.

The titles being this way are shown to be very plan and also don’t give much away about the film.

These titles are typical in horror opening films.

The Ring.

The RingThe opening of the ring is very different to the above films (Women in black and Se7en)

This is due to the story line being established and shown to the audience within the first few minutes of the opening.

The very fist shot is an establishing shot of a old fashioned house with no surroundings, this is a typical convention used in horror.

The Ring.

The lighting through out the whole film is very dark and mysterious. This is also a convention of horror films.

The opening of this film starts of very ordinary with two young girls watching the television but all changes when the phone rings. The clothing worn by the two female characters is just a school uniform, this helps create the feeling that the two characters are doing ordinary things until the phone rings.