Evaluation 1

By Rory Denyer

TitlesMain Title iconic for the

horror genre; red connotes blood.

Typography looks messy as if it has been written

with a finger or scratched in somewhere with a

knife. Red on black title like The Rocky Horror

Picture Show (Sharman, 1975) but font a bit more

menacing.

Named titles are a lot less dramatic than are main title as they are shown throughout the opening and we didn’t want them to distract from the action. We have seen this rather plain text in other film openings like Hannibal(Scott,2001), and we thought it looked good without being over the top. In the horror genre the most important thing is the typography of the main title rather than these ones so it goes with the conventional form of horror.

PlotThe form of our plot is very conventional for the Horror

genre. There is a lot of iconography e.g. torture and

weapons. There is also a twist which is all conventional of the horror genre. Our use of cages

and chains shows us it is a horror film opening. Our storyline is very

creepy and shocking, which was our aim to show it is in the horror

genre.

Character Exposition

Our opening shows the audience that our leads are torturing these people but it doesn’t tell us why. If we made the whole film it would be shown through flashbacks later why they are doing this. This type of exposition is iconic for horror films, starting with a clip from the end or half way through the film and then rewinding back to fill in the gaps. This is shown in The Conjuring (Wan, 2013).

Enigma Established

We established an enigma by building up our leads as protagonists but then revealing that they are in fact the antagonists when it shows what they have been doing in the basement . An enigmaor a twist is very important in a Horror film because they aim to scare and shock, it is not very scary if the truth is revealed straight away. This is done in Shutter Island (Scorsese, 2010).

CharacterOur antagonists conform to the conventions of our sub genre because at first we think that they are our protagonists until the basement is revealed. This is used in many psychological thrillers to create enigma, that you expect it to be one thing but it is actually something else is very shocking to the audience. Shutter Island also creates this kind of enigma.

Psychological Thriller Sub-Genre

• Plot- Our plot also conforms to the conventions of a psychological thriller, its use of violence and graphic scenes show that it is a horror, but what the antagonists are doing makes it psychological because it is disturbing and twisted.

• Mise-en-scene - The set design of our film is a strong part I think, the use of newspaper clippings all stuck together shows the mind of a disturbed person as he crosses off his victims. The contrast made between the clean kitchen and the old, scary basement is conventional of our sub-genre as it denotes secrets and lies. Another conforming part was the costume, the antagonists were dressed well and the victims in rags.

Continued• Sound- Our music creates tension which is seen in many horror films. The use

of diegetic sound effect is often used to horror films to make the audience jump. We used a creepy piano in the kitchen scene to raise tension and then dramatic music in the basement which becomes louder and louder.

• Camera work- We used close ups and tracking shots at the beginning to show who we are placed with. We then used high angled shots to make the victims look weak and handicam when revealing on of the victims. We also used POV shots to see things from the perspective of the antagonist. Our use of camera work slightly challenged convention of our sub-genre because we would usually be placed with the protagonist but in ours you are placed with the antagonist.

• Editing style- We used continuity editing through most of our film but we used montage editing when revealing all the newspapers with missing headlines. This was to create tension and to show the audience something is wrong before the basement is revealed. This is conventional for our sub-genre because often little bits of information are given away at a time but never the whole story. We used matched cuts so the whole story looks even and while we had quite a slow cutting rate it increased later on in the opening to show tension