GC: Horror Film Openings Research

GC: Horror Film Openings - Research

Between us, the group concluded we would make a horror film. However, we are still yet unsure as to whether it will be a traditional 'slash' horror film, or more of a psychological horror. Consequently, I have chosen to analyze one of each type: The Ring being a psychological horror, and Scream 4 being more of a slash horror type.

The Ring

The costume the girl is in also helps to portray this relaxed sense as her shirt cuffs are unbuttoned and she is walking round the house barefoot, thus giving out a false sense of security. Also the cutting rate when filming the girl is quite slow to make the audience feel relaxed. However, when objects related to building up the horror are shown like the remote, the TV and the door, the cutting rate increases to build up the tension within the audience. Increasing the cutting rate would be an effective way to create a psychological horror without using lots of props and dialogue in our own film intro.

• Dark lighting throughout the scene is used to build up a sense of tension and nervousness as it is hard to see anything else that might be going on in the scene that gives clues as to why the TV is turning its self on for instance. Also the contrast of relatively light surroundings in the first cut contrasts to the dark shots of the rest of the scene letting the audience know something bad is going to happen. Without the use of lighting equipment this may be difficult, but dark lighting like this would be a good technique to put into our scene as it can make people, environments and objects be portrayed as scary/nice, beautiful/ugly etc.
• Use (or lack of use) of sound in this scene is extremely effective. Only diegetic sound is used throughout to make the scene seem more realistic which brings the audience closer to the action as they can relate to it more. On top of this, because the whole clip is silent, the audience concentrate more and become more fearful that something may jump out. It may be hard to recreate this effect for our own production using the in built mic on the camcorder because you may be able to hear 'finger bumps' on the camera and it may amplify any unwanted background noise which would ruin the effect, To solve this however, it might be an idea to purchase an external microphone to plug in and gain better sound quality.
• At the end of the clip when the girl opens the door upstairs we see the camera speedily tracking out from the TV and then tracking in towards the girl for a close up to show her reaction. This makes it clear to the audience what she is looking at without having to reduce the element of surprise with an establishing shot. I would love to include a shot like this in the scene we will be shooting and could achieve this using a fast-forward effect.

Scream 4

• There is an anti-climax built up twice in this scene, once when the girl upstairs is on the phone and once when the other girl lies on the floor. In both instances, these false leads are created through the use of camera technique. The first one keeps the camera focused on the girl downstairs so the audience is unaware of the other girl playing the prank from upstairs. This makes the audience more involved as they are 'on the same level' so to speak, as the girl who is being pranked - they feel just as scared as they do not know what is going on. The second anti-climax sees the camera peering over the sofa in a POV shot. This puts the audience in the same position as the girl investigating her friend. This sense of audience involvement is what we aim to achieve when creating our film and could be done through camera techniques like this.
• As seem in both anti-climax scenes, violins are used to quickly build tension. However, in the shot where the girl in the kitchen turns around to see the killer behind her friend, no music is used. This again brings the audience along with the character by giving them the same point of view. When producing our own film, using and not using music could really have a strong effect on if the audience sees a shot as scary or calm. Though creating music like this may be hard, lots of free sound effects are available on the web to use for our film intro.
• As seen in The Ring,the cutting rate for this film also alternates between slow/fast for calm/tense moments.  Because The Ring was a psychological horror compared with this traditional horror, cutting rates have more of an effect in The Ring than they do for Scream 4. Which ever type of horror we choose to make, cutting rates will play a key role in our filming and we should try to replicate the cutting rates shown in these two films.
• The anti climaxes make the real event seem less scary at first, but even more scary once the audience acknowledges what is going on. Using anti-climaxes like this would take up time and considering the introduction we are making is limited to only two minutes, we may not be able to fit one in, but I think using one in our film would add some extra kick to the scare and keep the audience in suspense and concentrated on the film.