Horror

A Nightmare On Elm Street opening scene analysis

The first shot starts of by showing a close up of the main characters boots, keeping the identity hidden for now. This shows that immediately enigmas have already started to be added!  You get the diegetic sounds from him walking, his constant deep breathes and the background noises from wherever he is. Then you have the non- diegetic sound which is just one constant high pitched note. The shots are already moving quickly. You have a high angle shot of all these knives that he is working with then it transports straight into several close ups as he begins to make something out of these knives.  You are shown his hands and feet but not face so he is still left a mystery. You then get a medium shot of what he has made which is a hand with knives as fingers. From this you can tell that he is a villain and will cause the scare that this movie is all about.
 

The next shot is the title shot. It isn’t at the beginning or the end however, it is still effective as you have a quick introduction about how the main character made his claw hand. This draws the audience in straight away and with the spooky music in the background building tension you suddenly get given the name of the film, making you want to find out what the storyline is all about and why he has this claw hand.  The ‘Nightmare’ is bright red, big and bold as this is the main word that jumps out at you and needs emphasis. You can tell from this that it isn’t a recent film due to the red writing. Although ‘on elm street’ is white and printed on top of the red writing in a much smaller writing and different font. It is all in capital letters like a horror movie title should be. The non-diegtic sound is quite childish and sounds like a nursery rhyme.
 

Straight after the title you are shown a close up of the finger knives cutting straight through a piece of fabric, tearing it. You have the villain scream. The music is very spooky and is going quite slow.

The next shot is a close up of a girl looking frightened and lost. She looks around and with this constant high pitched note that was played at the beginning, the audience can start to feel the tension. An extreme close up shot is then showed of her face as she looks straight into the camera, this is direct address. This helps the audience put themselves in the characters shoes and feel their emotions which is fear right now. You then have a long shot of her in an abandoned corridor with low key lighting and her wearing a white night gown, showing that this is all a nightmare. You have her running away down this corridor panting and crying. You have the diegetic sound of the water falling off the ceiling creating puddles all down the corridor. This is effective as its makes the setting more scary for the audience to watch as she runs bare footed down this wet hallway. There is then a voice over of the villain talking and with this she turns her back to the camera looking down the lonely corridor. The non-diegetic sound builds up and the camera starts to zoom in closer behind her. Suddenly, there is a bang. She turns around and it turns out to be a sheep, the villain starts to laugh. You can only hear him and not see him.
 

However, during this trailer the writing that tells you the directors and producers isn’t very effective for a horror movie. It is more comedian type of font, quite out of place and random and not all in capital letters. The audience in modern days would find this off putting but as it is an old film they can get away with it.
 

The setting then changes as in the next shot the girl ends up running in a basement with lots of pipes and the lighting is very dark and freaky. The non-diegetic sound is the music that sounds like a nursery rhyme again. You get a quick glimpse of a darkened shadow which is the villain but then disappears straight away. This is effective as it allows the audience to feel that little bit of satisfaction by finally seeing him but not for long enough that they want to carry on watching. You also hear the diegetic sound of all the pipes squeaking. You get long shots of the girl running around in this basement in the dark with scary surroundings trying to look out for the villain. The camera constantly follows behind her, creating suspense as the audience want to know what is going to happen as they have made it clear and this villain is following her. The voiceovers of  all the laughs makes it obvious that it’s all games to him and his amusement is watching people suffer.
 

You are shown a medium shot of the villain running his knife fingers along a pipe. Scratching is good diegetic sound for a horror and is quite common. The vulnerable girl turns around and the fabric that the villain made a tear in earlier completely rips as he jumps out on her screaming.  She runs into a dead end, making the audince think he has finally got her but then you see him walk straight past her and see his shadow refelect. You hear the diegetic sounds of the sheep baaing again. Slowly, she starts to walk towards the camera. This makes the audience think that she is going to be okay and that he is gone but all of a sudden he appears behind her grabs her shoulder and screams.

The next shot is her waking up in bed leaning forward in a panic, you know she is panicing as you get a close up of her face as she breathes heavy and is dripping with sweat. There is knocking on her door and her mum enters to ask if she is okay and says her name making the audience aware of who she is. She replies with it was just a dream. However, when she looks down at her night gown she sees the gash in it that was exactly the same as the fabric he teared. The  audience realise that these dreams are not just dreams and if you die in your dream, you die in real life.