HR: Opening Sequence Analysis

Scream 2 (Craven, 1997)

• The genre of Scream 2 is horror, the sub genre being a slasher film. In the opening sequence, it takes a tongue and cheek approach by making the film being shown in the cinema (Stab) very similar to the opening of the original Scream film and the actors in Scream 2 criticise it by yelling at the cinema screen.
• This takes a different approach to classic horror films as they are usually set in a dark, mysterious location with a lot of suspense built up whereas Scream 2 takes this generic expectation and turns it on its head, but later in the sequence you see the first murder which makes it more shocking as the rest of the scene has been done in a playful manner.
• The mise-en-scene does not give the impression that this is a horror film because of the bright lights from the cinema and the amount of dialogue used. But this changes when the man goes into the toilet and gets stabbed and the killer disguises himself as her boyfriend which creates dramatic irony for the audience as they know what is going to happen next. As the cinema is filled with people dressed in ghost face masks, it heightens the fact that the killer will be harder to catch, thus creating enigma.
•  There is a lot of close ups of the couples faces to show their reactions to the film and when they get killed. Tracking shots and pans are used frequently to set the scene for the audience so they are more in the action. Background noise and diagetic sounds are also used to set up the cinema scene, but as soon as the killer is present, the music changes to a high pitched melody which is commonly used in horror film openings, so the director has done this on purpose so it creates tension.
• We learn that the woman does not want to see the film as she gets scared easily, but her boyfriend takes her along because he got free tickets. The non verbal language of the woman is tense as she doesn’t know what to expect from the film being shown.

Tears (Khun, 2006)

• There is no narrative in this text, only the diagetic sounds from the surroundings to make the audience focus more on the visual images of the child on the swing and the girl hanged from the tree. The audience are positioned with the child as she is vulnerable and quietly playing on the swing which is an innocent image, also she is isolated as she is on her own in the middle of a desert like surrounding so the audience fear no-one is there to protect her so it makes the opening more emotional.
• The heaving breathing coming from the little girl helps to heighten her feelings of terror of the hanged girl and to create suspense as the audience are on the edge of their seats wondering if something is going to happen to her. The sudden loud high pitched noises makes the audience jump and could also signify the sounds coming from the girl when the arm stretches out towards the little girl’s neck. The fact that no noise is heard when the hanged girl drops to the floor the director does not heighten it on purpose in case the audience were not paying attention and they suddenly see the hanged girl alive, it will make them more scared.
• This opening represents little girls as isolated and vulnerable as she is on her own on the swing with no-one else around her staying quiet as she is confused about what is going on. But this could also been seen in a different perspective. It could represent the child as brave because she is on her own having to deal with this strange situation, plus she doesn’t make a sound or run away which could be represented as brave.
• It does not represent the characteristics of the genre playfully as it has a mixture of different techniques such as handicam (to give a more realistic feel) and obscure editing to give the audience a sense of chaos and loss of control.

Saw 3 (Bouseman, 2006)

• The target audience of Saw 3 is adult males as the rating of the film is an 18 and there are graphic and gory torture scenes. The probable reading of this text is to terrify and disturb the audience because the protagonist is stuck in a dark room with a carcass having to saw his own leg off to escape. These graphic scenes will make the majority of people feel sick, but another reading of this is that it ties in very well with the title so some audiences may see this as clever and they might like the adrenaline rush of being fearful.
• Personally I think this opening is grotesque and scary but as the target audience is for adult males, I would have a biased point of view being a female teenager as the target audience for females is a romantic comedy. It also depends on your upbringing as well because if you live in a rough area where knife crimes happen currently, you wouldn’t see that as scary as someone who was brought up in a middle class town with very little crime rates.
• Donnie Wahlberg is the first actor you see in Saw 3. He has been in the previous Saw films so by making him in it again, it makes the audience want to come back for more as they want to know what happens to him. Even if people have not seen the previous Saw films, they would be drawn to watch it. This helps to boost box office figures and to create a buzz around the film as a famous actor is in it.
• Twisted Pictures produced this film. It is an American independent film company founded in 2004 by Mark Burg, Oren Koules and Gregg Hoffman. It specialises in the horror genre. It has made a distribution deal with Lionsgate, a commercially successful independent film company.
• Lionsgate wanted to make the marketing for Saw 3 even more gruesome than the movie itself and asked the star to contribute his own blood for a limited run of posters (1,000 prints) to get the deepest blood red possible. The posters were sold for $20, with the first being auctioned off; all the proceeds from the auctioned poster were donated to the Red Cross. Lionsgate also held the third annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross and collected 23,493 pints of blood. The institutional context is evident in the opening as the victim has to harm himself in order to escape from a trap which is basically the whole set up for the film so the audience know to expect a lot of blood and gore.