Research into an horror film

I chose the horror film – The conjuring 2 (2016). The director of it is James Wan. The top casts are Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Madison Wolfe. It is produced by New Line Cinema and distributed by Warner Bros. Studio. The total budget is $40 million. The beginning of the film directly tells a short story to lead to the plot afterwards.

The opening starts with the voiceover which tells the audience more information about the story. We know the time and the setting straight away by the subtitle- Amityville, New York, 1976.

It warns us the dangerous by the dialogue “But this one, this one still haunts me.” At the start. This creates a horror atmosphere. Then it uses a long shot to follow the staff all the way to a table that surrounded by people. This shows the environment and the setting clearly. After the introduction, they drew up the curtains to cover the sun, and the whole room became dim. Darkness connotes evil and dangerous. The horror tone has been set perfectly by using the ambient sound in the background with the devil whispers and the pleonastic sound of the gun shooting sounds. Furthermore, the killing actions with the blood creates the thriller and horrific atmosphere. There is also a small detail that the lighting changes between the reality and the haunted timeline. it is in the warm lighting for the real world, however in the haunted house the lighting is dark and cold. Because the elements of the evil spirit and the haunted events, I think the target audience is people over 16. In addition, because it is a horror film, it is easy to reach world wide audiences.

There are several characters in the opening video clip, but we can know the woman is the protagonist from the screen time. Base on the story line, we know that she can be psychic, and can see ghosts or possessed on others. “Ronnie Defoe had brutally murdered his entire family in this house, we’d hope to discover if the killing had been motivated purely by anger or if he had been. Under the influence of something demonic.” The scene changed by this voiceover and a zooming in extreme close up shot of her eyes. The special lighting on her eyes connotes the special power of the woman that she can see or possessed on the spirits.

The eyes opened with a loud gun shot which shows that she is already transform to the day that the man kills his family. When she opened her eyes and walked out alone, rules of thirds were used here to show two of herself. On the left is her with the group of people in reality, while on the right is her who is already in a different world.

There is candlelight on the left so it is warm, while the one on the right is in the dark. Here connotes that terrible things will happen in the world on the right. The woman is very calm and seemed have lots of the experience at the start. But over time, she began to become flustered and scared. The high angle shots in the upstairs gives audience pressures.

From the woman's mechanical killing movements and expressions, the audience could be aware that she was out of control. Moreover, from the figure in the shadow and the man in the mirror, we can know that the heroine possessed on the man who killed the whole family so she can know what has happened on that day. Zoom in shot on the man makes people realise that the heroine is not conscious, and also makes the audience feel even more scared by seeing his facial expressions clearly. In summary, we get many information of the main characters and from her facial expressions, her feeling change from calm and brave to afraid. This can hint the following plot.

The opening is basically recalling a psychic events she investigated before, from the voiceover at the start we can know that this time is very special and has a great impact on her. The beginning ended in her extreme panic. I think the next storyline may continue this haunted incident. Because the heroine is here to investigate this incident, there may be some ghosts or demons doing bad things in the future. It is also possible that after this incident is over, the woman will continue to investigate another haunted incident because this is her profession and mission.

 

I think the opening scene is amazing as it really engage people in. The non-diegetic soundtrack from beginning to end is parallel to the mood. This can magnify our panic.

The tense atmosphere makes the audience feel like they are in a haunted room, and the combination of sound effects and the frames makes the whole beginning very fascinating. It is easily to grab people into the story. In addition, it tells many useful information at the start by the voiceover, so the audience won’t be confused.