This document summarizes and analyzes horror film scenes from 12 movies: A Field in England, Insidious 2, Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, Nosferatu, The Conjuring, The Exorcist, The Shining, The Babadook, and A Field in England again. It examines how each clip uses techniques like editing, music, shadows, gestures, and jumps to unsettle and frighten audiences. Particular attention is paid to the transformations of characters in A Field in England and The Shining that show the psychological impacts of horror.

1. Horror
This presentation shows a variety of clips and scenes from horror
movies. This collection of clips will help me realise the different ways of
making a horror film, and how to use mise-en-scene and other
attributes to unnerve audiences.

2. A Field in England (2013)
Not necessarily a popular or obvious choice of a horror film, A Field in England
tells the story of a group of deserters in the Civil War who are captured by an
alchemist and are forced to help him find his long lost treasure. In this scene,
Whitehead is heard screaming (which in itself is truly unnerving due to the
reason of his screaming never being revealed but is left to the opinion of the
audience to decide) and then walking out of the tent with rope around him
tied to something in the tent. His pace into the field has been slowed down for
maximum effect, to unsettle the audience and for them to see Whitehead’s
grin, which shows he is a different man from when he entered the tent. This
shows that whatever nameless brutality what Whitehead undergoes in the
tent has drastically transformed him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzLnRXtHO0M

3. Insidious 2
(2013)
In this scene in Insidious 2, a mother is shouting and attacking her young son Parker about his
wanting to be boy, despite his mother wanting him to be a young girl called Marilyn. This act of
brutality on the boy is disturbing, only to be amplified by the mother forcing him to admit that
his name is Marilyn when he obviously doesn’t believe it. Whilst the boy looks natural and
healthy, the mother has pale skin and shadows under her eyes, which suggests that she in
abnormal. At the end of the scene, the mother stops taking to her son mid-sentence, and slowly
turns to see the people watching her. The background turns dark and the mother screams and
point at the people, who are impossibly thrown back through the door, and her eyes bulge and
her mouth is wide open. This image is alarming and distressing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b6biW_qicQ

4. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Despite its out of date effects and fight sequences which look little more than toddlers fighting, Night of the
Living Dead is the classic zombie film which started it all. In this scene Johnny and Barbara are laying flowers
on a grave, and go to exit the graveyard until Johnny starts to mess around and frighten Barbara. He starts to
tell her that ‘They’re coming to get you’, which when applied to a realistic world would be quite frightening.
Whilst passing a man in the graveyard, the man attacks Barbara who has to be saved by Johnny. In the end,
Johnny collapses from his fight with the zombie. This scene is startling for the audience because Johnny
includes the man in his taunts saying that ‘there comes one of them now’ for Barbara, and the man is
genuinely coming to attack the two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6EMALvJQVc

5. Psycho (1960)
A classic horror made by the horror genius Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho tells the story a man
Norman Bates who owns a motel under the thumb of his mother. As it turns out his mother
is a skeleton and he walks around in her clothes, becoming her. In the end he is arrested for
a murder, and the film ends with a monologue from Norman as his mother which in itself is
discomforting to think that he believes that he is his mother and he can get away with it.
This monologue is the thought process that Norman/Mother goes through, and at the end
he looks directly into the camera whilst thinking the words ‘She wouldn’t hurt a fly’.
Looking at the camera whilst filming is unorthodox, however under the circumstances
Norman has direct eye contact with the audience, and along with his creepy smile suggests
that he plans on getting released from prison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYDxxHrlmUg

6. Nosferatu (1922)
Nosferatu is one of the first unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, filmed in 1921. In this clip Hutter’s wife
Ellen is sacrificing herself to Count Orlok (the nosferatu, which in this film means vampire), who comes to
steal her ‘pure heart’. She has opened the windows to let him in, but he surprises everyone by coming in
through the door. What makes this scene even more terrifying is that you never see Count Orlok, only ever
his shadow, but you know he is in the room from the look of Ellen’s face. Despite Ellen’s useless attempt to
protect her heart, the sudden realisation that the Count takes her heart without even touching her startles
the audience. The Count’s shadow is in the stereotypical stance of a vampire, one hand in front of him with
the other hand by his side. The music in this scene is jolty and menacing which puts the audience on edge
and creates tension for what is about to happen in the film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k51eCnC8ucw

7. The Conjuring (2013)
The Conjuring is another typical supernatural horror film. The first clip shows the game that a mother and
daughter play together, where one is blindfolded whilst trying to seek the other, during which the one who
is hiding must clap three times. The mother thinks that her daughter is in the wardrobe, and the audience is
certain because they see hands in the wardrobe clapping. However, when the mother takes of her blindfold
her daughter runs into the room from the hallway. I then dawns on the mother, and audience, that the thing
clapping in the wardrobe wasn’t the girl. In the next clip, the mother is scared of what she will find in the
basement. She lights a match to see better, and whilst she is looing down, the audience is expecting
something or someone to jump at her from the basement. However, when the camera is on her face, hands
appear next to her head from the background and clap. This shocks and frightens the audience because it
shows that something has been following the mother because they know her game she plays with her
daughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoDWoxXxQaA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdAnO4bZq4

8. The Exorcist (1973)
This clip from this revolutionary film The Exorcist shows a priest attempting to exile a demonic
force that is possessing a child. The priest shouts at the demon to be cast out, but the child is
hysterically laughing, which is unnerving to hear because of the anger of the priest, a character of
noble intentions and respect, is being laughed at by someone subservient to him and is working
to reduce him. The child turns away from the priest, but when it turns back makes eye contact
with camera and the audience, only for a brief second but still enough to scare anyone watching
the film. The child also blasphemies against the church and God which is deemed sacrilegious.
Lastly, the child head begins to twist all the way around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSxuXQCEC7M

9. The Shining (1980)
What was once a loving relationship has turned into a violent mess in this turning point scene in The
Shining, which shows Jack screaming and threatening his hysterical wife. Jack also raises his hands in a
non violent way, but has violent implications, meaning his hands were not near Wendy so she was not
in danger of him attacking her, but the fact that he raises his hands in the first place is abnormal and
disturbing, and along with his verbal confirmation a him hurting her, scares Wendy into defending
herself. His joking manner soon changes when he tells her to put down the bat, and continues to tell
her in a serious manner to give him the bat. The severe change in tone of voice implicates that Jack is at
the end of his patience, and the audience worries for Wendy because of her lack of confidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n47U-v3v1-Q

10. The Babadook (2014) vs A Field in England (2013)
These two clips are from films which involve a large amount of editing to emphasises topics. The first is from The Babadook,
whose opening scene has a woman who is in the drivers seat of a crashing car. The film keeps fading black, and then cutting
back to the woman. This creates an intense mood of what is going to happen in the film, because this scene is without
context. The woman is then impossibly lowered onto her bed at her house which only adds to the confusion fro the audience.
The second clip is from A Field in England where Whitehead is tripping on mushrooms that he has found in the field. The
sequence that follows Whitehead’s speech is presumed the effect of what Whitehead is feeling, with images of O’Neill and
other characters and important symbols within the film (ie mushrooms) being intertwined with other pieces of footage and
being mirrored. The ending sequence being Whitehead disintegrating into nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wpS9otWz9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3YWhARpEUA