Summer Research On Horror Film Openings

Ingredients of an opening of a horror film

An Eerie location, good horror films thrive on tension and environments that force claustrophobic mazes, tunnels, old mansions, basements, etc. all force characters into close contact with monsters or each other.  Whether they are psychos or actual creatures, that tight habitat with mystery around each turn breeds the most effective opportunities for terror add in craziness and you’ve got a recipe for horror opening

Innocent characters, the audience cares about are a must for successful horror opening. For example, children.  When children are put into jeopardy, everyone cares and hopes for their safety and redemption.  They are vulnerable and innocent who doesn’t want to see them unharmed. Families are also great motivators for redemption, no one wants to see a nice family destroyed the struggle to keep the family together is good for tension. Women, particularly attractive women because no one wants to see an attractive women’s good looks go to waste in the worst way

Let the minds do the thinking, so many of today’s films rely on the shock of gore, showing every aspect of the brutality in a step by step nature. For me I just watch through and laugh because of how ridiculous the gore is. The best thing is to show a psycho holding a knife and then hear laughing and the knife piercing the skin and then some screams. That way our brains did the work.

The Unknown, touch on an aspect of human nature that is universal fear of that which is unknown.  Those big regions of our world that remain largely unexplored.  The ocean, space, the forest, the human psyche, unknown disease, the afterlife etc.  These are places where mystery thrives and the imagination is free to unleash havoc on our otherwise common senses.

Music, this is key to an opening scene because you can tell if the pitch and volume of the music increase then there is going to be something eerie around the corner and also it sets the tone for the rest of the film as well as make you jump

A Level Media - Summer Work

	Characters	Location/Time	Opening title (font)	What do you learn about the story?
Blade Opening	Vampires who were students, one ordinary student and Blade	The evening, In a Nightclub which sprays out blood	Bold and Red	That everyone is being turned into a vampire and blade needs to kill the vampires and save the world
Insidious Opening	Evil old woman and ordinary woman and ordinary child	In a spine-chilling bedroom at night	Sharp, bloody and old	The evil old woman will be haunting the child and mother or try to possess one of them
Signs Opening	Two men and two children one girl one boy	Daytime, in the cornfields in the middle of nowhere	Sci-fi, bright	They get abducted by aliens or possessed by a huge monster
Scream Opening	One women and a masked man	Night, in a huge mansion	Bold and bloody	This man in the creepy mask is going to be killing people severely for something in return
Women In Black Opening	Three children dressed old fashionably all girls	In the attic of a mansion at day time	Black, dark, bold	Those three children are controlled by an evil old women and become possessed and start haunting people