Personal Film Opening Analysis

See No Evil

Brief Summery of Film

A group of delinquents are sent to clean the Blackwell Hotel. Little do they know reclusive psychopath Jacob Goodnight has holed away in the rotting hotel. When one of the teens is captured, those who remain, a group that includes the cop who put a bullet in Goodnight's head four years ago, band together to survive against the brutal killer

Analysis

At the start of the film two police are shown walking up to a “spooky” house that looks to be deserted, they here screaming that sounds like it is coming from female from within the house, they then produce their guns and enter the house. At this point in the film everything appears to be calm, the editing of the shots is very slow, this adds the effect of tension for later scenes. A side from a small amount of dialogue between the two police men their is not much sound up to this point, the sound that is there is a almost nursery rhyme type song that is diegetic sound coming from the police cars radio. The music that is used is very eary and along with the slow editing add tension to the scene. It has to be noted that for a horror film the video on screen starts in the day and is relatively bright which does not fit in to the horror movie stereotype.

As soon as the two police enter the house many things about the film begin to change, the first thing that is noticeable is that the lighting in much darker than before, the only light that is visible on the screen at this point is the light from the exit door which fades away as they move in, small torches that only provide a low amount of dim light and very small candles that don't really effect the level of lighting too much, essentially it is very dark which this time does fit in to the genre perfectly and is used to scare the audience. One of the only things that doesnt change between the two location (outside then inside) is the sound which at this point may have become non diegetic sound as you cannot possible hear the car radio from where they are but the music is still as loud.

One other notable change that can be scene between the two locations is the type of camera shots that are used, the outside scene was mostly made up of long and medium shots with not many close-up shots but when it switches to the scene inside the house there is many close-up shots that show the reaction of the characters on screen, not only this but it is also used along side the dark lighting to create a very claustrophobic atmosphere.

Interestingly it is around this time where the first female is introduced into the film. The female character wearing very simple clothing that doesn’t stand out and draw attention to her, also to back up the idea that she isnt important to the film she doesnt get named in the opening sequence. The female character does seem to fit a “typical” women stereotype and is seen to be very emotional and is crying and weeping throughout the scene. Another thing that is noticeable with the female is that she never gets of the floor, she never stands up but instead stays crying on the floor throughout the entire scene.

Also during this scene we first see the villain of the movie, the first time we “see” him we don't see any detain of him as he is just a silhouette behind a very thin curtain. This is used to give him an element of surprise and mysteriousness, and make him seem for intimidating to the audience.

When the villain is on screen the editing of the shots become much faster than before and you can easily notice that the pace of the film as increased, along with this the sound is upped at this point and diegetic sounds are very loud, these sounds consist of screaming, heavy breathing, a sound of an axe killing a human can all be heard.

In this scene everytime that you see the villain the camera is either at a close up or medium close up of the villain and is always tilted up at him, all these different type of camera techniques are done to give the villain extra power and make the other people in scene look small and weak in comparison.

The villain kills one of the police officers with a large axe, he stabs him with it twice, he then goes forward to the other police officer and uses his axe to then cut off his arm that is still holding the torch, he then goes for another axe shot that would be the finishing blow but the officer managers to get a shot off of his gun in is other hand that wounds the villain and causes him to flee, the remaining officer then calls for backup before slowly passing out

After that scene the titles start to appear on screen, they are very simple titles that are in a bold white font on mostly dark black backgrounds.

The scene then completely switches time and location and we are briefly introduced to several new characters who are all criminals, it is day time and everything is bright, they then begin to get on a bus and get driven away.

By Tom Pollard