Analysing the opening two minutes: Halloween

The opening of Halloween starts with an long shot, which establishes the building and the setting of this part of the film. Within this establishing shot we see that the time of day is night and everything is dark, this has connotations to the generic themes of a horror film, the darkness symbolises horror, mystery and fear. This works together with the non diegetic music to create fearful tension within the audience. The sound switches from non diegetic music, to diegetic sound which is dialogue. This use of diegetic sound over the establishing shot draws the audience into the film and leaves them asking questions of who is talking, and why?

The shots stay very dark during this opening sequence. This suggests the continuity of the generic horror genre which is carried throughout. The next shot then establishes to the audience who is talking, however they are still left with the question why? These rhetorical questions are a common factor within horror films, as the audience is not given too much to begin with and all is revealed as the film progresses. Within this next part of the sequence the camera stays very still unlike during the establishing shot when it was tracking towards the house as if entering the house and revealing who was talking. This time the stillness of the camera allows the dialogue (diegetic sounds) to be more dominant. Also the children walk out of the frame this adds to the flow of the film to show the realistic performance of it all.

In this next frame we are introduced to two more characters. Again the area is still very dark with low key lighting to continue the flow of the horror genre. This next character is also a conventional character which is usually in many horror films, the character is a young teenage, blonde girl, and this character usually has connotations with the victim of first to die within horror films. Also we see another character in the background of the shot. The character is dressed in all black again suggesting darkness and fear and is also wearing a mask which has connotations to mystery and the horror of finding out who this person is. This character is conventionally seen as the villain.

The camera cuts are not very intense within this scene, however the camera cuts subtly to show the facial reaction of the young girl during this section . This also shows the levels/proximities between these two characters. The villain gets closer and closer towards the girl until he is overshadowing/ overpowering her. During this there is also some non diegetic sound which is played this quickening pace from the music creates tension within the audience as they are watching the villain creep towards her however she does not know what is happening.

At the end of the opening two minutes the audience is introduced to another character. This character could be seen as a hero, as he saves the girl. However the audience is left with many questions and not much is answered within these opening two minutes. The audience have been introduced to many conventional characters which are present in a horror film however the storyline is not yet clear and the audience is left wondering, who the characters are? What is their purpose? What is happening and why? And what is going to happen next?