1. The conjuring
The fact that the opening scene starts with only dialogue and a blank black
screen already sets the mood, we are drawn to focus on the first piece of dialogue
“When you hear this you are going to think we are insane”
Already there is a threatening situation presented to the viewers, which hints
that there is insanity situations bound to be present in the film.
There is the use of ambient sounds of the recording tape being set and then
rolling, this creates a realistic feeling of an interview.
The opening of the first scene uses disembodiment, as it is a close up of the dolls
eye, immediately this creates a sense of fear for the viewers as they are
awkwardly positioned very close up to the frightening object. This is a long take
as it feels like we are staring at this object for a long period of time, this is
probably done because the director wants us to remember this prop as it is
important. At first you are not able to make out what the object is, this creating
the sense of mystery and risk, and so this forces the audience into looking at that
one particular part of the object and they analyze until they figure it out. Because
it is only showing what the director is intentionally trying to show us this is
because they want us to focus on that particular aspect because it could end up
being something important, or it could simply just be a warm up and it is
preparing us of what is to come.
Then there are the close up shots of the girls faces when they speak, then there is
a zoom out shot when they calmly explain the innocence of the petrifying
situation, but the zoom out shot in a way is allowing the audience to see the
bigger picture and to not get cheated into believing the naive story.
The short cut away shot to the doll makes it seem like the doll is part of the
conversation and almost creates a sadistic comical effect to it, because it makes
the audience question the characters choices, also the timing of the dialogue
where it says that they let the spirit inhibit the doll, and showing the doll at that
moment makes the viewer’s feel unsafe, as there’s already signs of possessive,
twisting, controlling behavior,as there is an innocence to a child’s doll and if it
had the power to convince the owners to allow it to live with them, it makes the
audience question, what other things would the doll be capable of doing?
The lighting of the opening sequence, throughout is very dark, the audience can
just about see the characters, the dim light causing a secretive shadowy
environment making the safety of the characters questionable to the audience.
The characters wear a lot of colorful clothing but it’s hardly seen because it is so
dark, this connotes to the audience that
The prop of the doll creates a chilling feeling as a doll is known as an innocent
child’s toy, to use it as a scary possessed doll cause a lot of uneasiness and a
bloodcurdling feeling because something so innocent and childlike has been
transformed to a prop of evil.
Another prop is the sheet of paper that has writing on it saying “Miss me?” This
definitely has an alarming effect because it makes you wonder how

2. At the beginning there is hardly any use of sound, but as the story goes on and
because more intense, music accompanies it.
it is positioned on the chair and how it is directly staring at the camera, all of this
builds tension because the unraveling story
Drag me to hell
Straight away the title of the film is shown in black and white, this draws
viewers’ attention straight away as it is accompanied with theatrical intense
music on top, and then there is a quick transition in music and colour, the music
being more classical and the colours are more browns, this face paced music and
the transition suggest that the film itself will include a lot of fast paced scenes.
There is use of drawings in the opening sequence and this is very effectively used
as a montage. This makes it seem like the audience is reading a book, therefore it
is telling a story, and doing it with pictures is just as strong as dialogue. The story
starts of very dark with colour and the music is faint and quiet, it then slowly
brightens up a little as it does the music becomes more intensified and louder,
and the images shown are portraying horrific scenes, there is use of synchronous
sound here. The colour brown creates a woody texture effect and the costume of
the characters in the drawing is wearing Tudor style clothing and so it was set a
while back.
Using drawings for the opening is used very well as it highlights the facial
expression of the characters a lot, like when one character in the drawing is
screaming, you can’t hear anything but you know she because her facial
expression is showing terror and fear.The scene where the black fog captures the
characters creates a sense of entrapment, and they are trying to escape but they
can’t.
There is Theme music, this is non diegetic sound that has been put in after the
recording and it is used throughout the whole starting sequence, and when the
scenes changes it goes a long with the rhythm of the music, the use of musicality
creates a more rowdier atmosphere., making the audience aware of the energetic
scenes. The editing pace changes towards the end, the scenes change quicker
toward the end
Towards the end we get to see more props and real life drawings of the scenes
and it gives us a bigger picture to view at which allows us to see a bit of the
natural environment
Towards the end there is fire burning the images up this is very affective as it
concludes that there is no happy endings and it links with the title drag me to
hell, which immediately creates an image in your mind of demands and dark
demonic things.