This document provides an evaluation of a short horror film opening. It summarizes how the opening conforms to conventions of the horror and psychological thriller genres in several ways: 1) The main title is iconic with a red font suggestive of blood, while the named titles are more plain as to not distract from the action. 2) The plot features common horror elements like torture, weapons, and a twist ending. It aims to be creepy and shocking. 3) Character exposition is ambiguous at first, building mystery, as seen in other horror films like The Conjuring. 4) An enigma is established by initially presenting the leads as protagonists but then revealing they are the antagon

1. Evaluation 1
By
Rory Denyer

2. Titles
Main Title iconic for the
horror genre; red
connotes blood.
Typography looks messy as
if it has been written with
a finger or scratched in
somewhere with a knife.
Red on black title like The
Rocky Horror Picture Show
(Sharman, 1975) but font
a bit more menacing.
Named titles are a lot less
dramatic than are main title as
they are shown throughout the
opening and we didn’t want
them to distract from the
action. We have seen this rather
plain text in other film openings
like Hannibal(Scott,2001), and
we thought it looked good
without being over the top. In
the horror genre the most
important thing is the
typography of the main title
rather than these ones so it
goes with the conventional form
of horror.

3. Plot The form of our plot is very
conventional for the Horror
genre. There is a lot of
iconography e.g. torture and
weapons. There is also a twist
which is all conventional of the
horror genre. Our use of cages
and chains shows us it is a
horror film opening. Our
storyline is very creepy and
shocking, which was our aim to
show it is in the horror genre.

4. Character Exposition
Our opening shows the audience that our leads are
torturing these people but it doesn’t tell us why. If
we made the whole film it would be shown through
flashbacks later why they are doing this. This type
of exposition is iconic for horror films, starting with
a clip from the end or half way through the film and
then rewinding back to fill in the gaps. This is shown
in The Conjuring (Wan, 2013).

5. Enigma Established
We established an enigma by building up our leads as
protagonists but then revealing that they are in fact the
antagonists when it shows what they have been doing in the
basement . An enigma
or a twist is very
important in a Horror
film because they aim
to scare and shock, it
is not very scary if the
truth is revealed
straight away. This is
done in Shutter Island
(Scorsese, 2010).

6. Character
Our antagonists conform to the conventions of our sub
genre because at first we think that they are our
protagonists until the basement is revealed. This is
used in many psychological thrillers to create enigma,
that you expect it to be one thing but it is actually
something else is very shocking to the audience.
Shutter Island also creates this kind of enigma.

7. Psychological Thriller Sub-Genre
• Plot- Our plot also conforms to the conventions of a
psychological thriller, its use of violence and graphic
scenes show that it is a horror, but what the
antagonists are doing makes it psychological because it
is disturbing and twisted.
• Mise-en-scene - The set design of our film is a strong
part I think, the use of newspaper clippings all stuck
together shows the mind of a disturbed person as he
crosses off his victims. The contrast made between the
clean kitchen and the old, scary basement is
conventional of our sub-genre as it denotes secrets and
lies. Another conforming part was the costume, the
antagonists were dressed well and the victims in rags.

8. Continued
• Sound- Our music creates tension which is seen in many horror films. The use
of diegetic sound effect is often used to horror films to make the audience
jump. We used a creepy piano in the kitchen scene to raise tension and then
dramatic music in the basement which becomes louder and louder.
• Camera work- We used close ups and tracking shots at the beginning to show
who we are placed with. We then used high angled shots to make the victims
look weak and handicam when revealing on of the victims. We also used POV
shots to see things from the perspective of the antagonist. Our use of camera
work slightly challenged convention of our sub-genre because we would
usually be placed with the protagonist but in ours you are placed with the
antagonist.
• Editing style- We used continuity editing through most of our film but we used
montage editing when revealing all the newspapers with missing headlines.
This was to create tension and to show the audience something is wrong
before the basement is revealed. This is conventional for our sub-genre
because often little bits of information are given away at a time but never the
whole story. We used matched cuts so the whole story looks even and while
we had quite a slow cutting rate it increased later on in the opening to show
tension