The opening scene of Halloween establishes tension and mystery around the killer's identity. It begins with a point-of-view tracking shot of a couple inside a house being watched through the window. Footsteps and a screeching noise reveal an unseen person stalking the couple. A shot of a hand picking up a knife leaves the killer's identity unknown. When the woman screams "Michael!" before being stabbed, it raises questions about who Michael is and why he is killing her. The biggest surprise is that Michael turns out to be a young boy, subverting expectations for the killer's identity set up by horror film conventions.

1. The Opening Scene
for Halloween (1978)

2.  The film starts off with a fast panning shot of the
outside of the house and then alters to a tracking shot.
This shot is done as if it’s a Point of view as the
movement then alters from panning, to the camera
going towards the window; where two young adults are
kissing. We get the sense it’s a POV as they are
perceived as two innocent, loved up people who are
seen as victims to the person looking through the
window. We assume the villain is the person looking
through the window as it’s a peculiar thing to look
through the window of someone's house from the
outside. Already acknowledging it’s a horror film by the
title “Halloween”, we are already expecting murders.
Starting the intro off with this shot enables the
audience to make the correct judgment without having
to include any codes and conventions.

3.  When the tracking shot occurs again they
establish that it’s a POV because of the
noise of footsteps. The camera then tilts to
the window where the couple are and this is
where we are certain that the villain is
watching them because he/she saw them
go upstairs, and moved to have the view.
The expectation of the person outside
being the villain is also proved correct by
the instantly horrific, screeching sound that
occurred when they switched the light off.
This then causes the tracking shot to be a
lot faster which increases the tension in the
audience as we assume that he is going to
kill them when they’re at their most fragile.

4.  This unclear image of the villain taking out the
knife makes the audience realise that it is not a
monster with any special features and that it’s a
human, using a knife to kill. This shot of the hand
picking up the knife causes the audience to
question who the killer is, the purpose of the
killing and what the villain looks like. The POV
makes the audience feel like they’re the killer,
which gives them an unwanted discomfortable
feeling as they are unable to stop the death and
they feel like they’re the killer.

5.  As the killer is walking towards the couple, the
music rises to make the audience realise that
the death is going to occur soon. The louder
the noise, the closer to the murder you get in
the film. A code and convention in slasher
films is that the victim is often unaware of the
killer’s presence, and as with the two previous
films I’ve spoken about, the victim is a young,
innocent female. This causes frustration in the
audience as they are unable to help her in
anyway. However, by making the victim totally
unaware of the danger, when she
acknowledges the murderer she will be a lot
more horrified; reflecting that on to the
audience. This impacts the audience by making
them feel helpless from the inevitable.

6.  “Michael!” this quote from the young woman
connotes that she knows the murderer which
makes the audience question how she knows
him and what caused him to kill her. The
numerous stabbings suggests that it was
something quite prolific.

7.  When we discover that Michael is a little
boy, the audience are stunned as it wasn’t
what they were expecting. This
unexpected twist was formulated by the
POV shots as our only feature of the
murderer was the hand to suggest that
it’s an ordinary human being. However
the audience’s expectations which are
created by the codes and conventions in
slasher films, made them not even take a
little boy being the murderer into
consideration. Little boys are an
extremely small percentage of killers in
real life which was manipulated to shock
the audience.