The Woman In Black opening scene analysis

The Woman In Black

 

The clip starts of with an extreme close up of china cups and a teapot. However, when  the tea is poured no tea comes out and the non diegetic music being creepy and subtle as it sounds like a nursery childlike song and the audience start to sense a strange and eerie feeling. We are then shown a medium shot of  3 little girls having a tea party and playing with dolls, already this is quite creepy due to the slow actions and calming but spooky music as the girls look sweet and innocent. As they place their cups down we get direct mode of address as they look directly at the camera all at the same time looking possessed, which follows the codes and conventions of the horror genre as well as it being set  in a basement of a kids bedroom. The mis en scene is quite bland and grey make everything more haunting and suggesting that bad things are going to happen. The camera then moves closer and they look towards the window. The close up of the window is the next shot and is effective as it adds enigmas to why they are looking at this window and what is going to happen next.

In the next shot the children stand up and are completely oblivious to everything looking like they hypnotised . We get a close up of a girl dropping her cup as they start walking towards the window. You get the diegetic sound of the glass smashing, then one of the girls steps of the tea pot and the other girl steps on a dolls head all adding diegetic sound. The music has increased slightly but is still calming and bizarre as we get a medium shot is shown of all the girls backs up standing at the window. Due to the music increasing this can connote that the horror is about to begin. By the girls all wearing white and pretty shoes it connotes purity and innocence which adds more evil in the scene. As soon as they are at the window every move they do they are all in sync which is a effective due to it all being so mysterious. You then get close ups of the old fashioned handles and the windows opening.

The next shot is a long shot, the audience are confused of what is going on. They music turns into a low humming noise building tension, then suddenly the three girls  jump out of the window and more enigmas are added as the audience are left in shock. We hear a woman, preferably the mother scream 'my babies!' this is a traumatic experience and from here on we know there are more spine-chilling events to come. Finally we are shown an extreme close up of a china doll which is quite unsettling before the clip fades out to black.