Follows many of the conventions of the thriller/horror hybrid genre:- You do not see the female character’s face until the end - gives an element of the unknown.
- There is eerie music, ‘Abandoned’ (Robert Davidson), throughout - which creates a feeling of unease for the audience although they don’t know exactly what they feel uneasy about
- Enigma – all through the sequence the viewer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next
- The dual narrative helps build suspense - especially because of the binary opposites of dark inside and light outside
- This gives the audience a hint that the female character is the villain and that the male character will be trapped if he goes into the house - a key narrative pattern in thriller/horror- The sequence is very slow paced which also helps create suspense and make the viewer feel anxious
- Our location, which is a terraced house and street in Enfield, North London, is also conventional - the viewer is even more frightened with what happens in the film as it makes them feel it could happen to them, as we are playing on the fear that everyday situations can turn dangerous.
- For example, this is seen in ‘One Missed Call’ (Eric Valette, 2008) when the ordinary situation of a mobile phone ringing is turned into something to be feared.
Iconography:
- The colour red and candles being present in many areas of the house - give a hint of danger and of passion.
Themes in our sequence also follow the conventions of thriller/horror:
- Love/Passion – both shown with the candlelight, and red used throughout the house, and the fact that they’re a couple. However the candlelight also makes the inside of the house look eerie and the red signifies danger.
- Revenge - shown as they are a couple and when the audience find out that she is going to hurt the male character, they assume that it is for revenge. In the rest of the film they find out that this is the case.
- Feeling trapped – shown when he is waiting at the front door for her, and with the binary opposites
- Murder
There is pathetic fallacy as the closer the male character gets to the house the more it starts to rain. This again suggests that the house is unsafe.
The female character telling the male character that he’s ‘two minutes late’, suggests that she is mentally disturbed in some way. It also shows that she is controlling and gives a hint of what’s to come.
Challenging the conventions:
- Female character as the villain - women and girls are usually the ‘damsel in distress’ character while the male characters are the villains, for example, in ‘Halloween’ (John Carpenter, 1978).
- She is the dominant one in the relationship, as seen in their phone call, whereas the male character is a lot more laid back, and seems a lot more innocent than the female character.
- Our female character is similar to Glenn Close’s character in ‘Fatal Attraction’ (Adrian Lyne, 1987), a big influence on our character; although she is nice one moment she can very easily turn nasty
- Although we have challenged the conventions by having a female as the villain, this is becoming more common in realistic horror movies such as Angela Bettis in ‘May’ (Lucky McKee, 2002) and Mila Kunis in American Psycho II (Morgan J. Freeman, 2002), which suggests that the genre is developing in this way.
We have followed the conventions of an opening sequence:
- Have introduced the characters
- Have used titles to provide information about the cast and crew of the film, as well as the title of the film.
- The titles are slow paced - adds to the suspense of the film
- The font is curly enough to be romantic and sturdy enough to give a hint of danger. - The titles are small but easy to read which means they are not intrusive and do not distract from the film.
