The document analyzes horror film openings through examples from three films: Women in Black, Se7en, and The Ring. For Women in Black, it discusses how shots of children playing establish innocence before events take place. Shots of the children looking worried build mystery about the unknown threat. Scenes with dolls represent the children's loss of control. Se7en uses quick cuts between close-up shots that don't provide context. Title cards are plain white on black. The Ring establishes its story and characters immediately, showing two girls watching TV in ordinary clothing until a phone call changes events.

1. Analysis of existing
horror openings.
By Sophie Bennett.

2. Women in black.

3. Women in black.
In this shot at the start it shows the children
playing in there room. They look very innocent
and as a viewer you can suggest that they do not
know what is going to happen yet.
This master shot is not related to the film gender
‘horror’ because it is not scary. However because
of the background music being a nursery rhyme
which are used in horrors a lot, makes the
atmosphere scary.

4. Women in black.
In this shot it shows the three girls looking towards something.
However as a viewer you do not know what they are looking at.
This is called an enigma code which makes you think of the
unknown. From this shot you know that they children are looking
at something but you don’t know what yet so it makes the
audience want to carry on watching the rest of the film.
The décor that is established in this shot shows that the house is
old fashion. Old fashion houses are commonly where horror films
are set.

5. Women in black.
Throughout the opening of Women in black there are close
up shots of doll’s faces. This suggest that the doll’s are
important in this opening sequence and that something
later on in the opening will happen in relation to the doll’s.
Also the doll’s could be used to emphasize the children’s
innocents. However dolls are very common in horror films.
The doll’s could also be representing what is going to
happen to the girls because the children at the start are in
control of the dolls and then the children loose control and
are then controlled by someone else. Another reason is
that the dolls are broken when the children walk over them
and they smash which shows that they are dead and then
following this the children die.

6. Women in black.
The shot showing the window suggest that
something is going to happen related to the
window itself. However this is another enigma
code because the audience do not know what
yet. This makes the viewer watch on to see what
happens.
Following the window shot you see a shot of the
girls jumping out of the window. It can be
suggested that this is because they are under
control of someone else.

7. Se7en.

8. Se7en
During the film se7en there is a number of
quick, fast cuts of a variety of different shots. The
objects within the shots are very close up and the
viewers do not have much knowledge of what is
actually going on in the opening as no
information about the story line or the character.

9. Se7en
The titles within the opening of the film se7en are
flickering and white against a black background.
Some of the titles are also shown on the shots
themselves.
The titles being this way are shown to be very
plan and also don’t give much away about the
film.
These titles are typical in horror opening films.

10. The Ring.

11. The Ring
The opening of the ring is very different to the
above films (Women in black and Se7en)
This is due to the story line being established
and shown to the audience within the first few
minutes of the opening.
The very fist shot is an establishing shot of a old
fashioned house with no surroundings, this is a
typical convention used in horror.

12. The Ring.
The lighting through out the whole film is very
dark and mysterious. This is also a convention of
horror films.
The opening of this film starts of very ordinary
with two young girls watching the television but
all changes when the phone rings. The clothing
worn by the two female characters is just a
school uniform, this helps create the feeling that
the two characters are doing ordinary things until
the phone rings.