Horror - Women In Black Opening.

Horror Opening

Women In Black   

The genre of "women in black" is a thriller/ horror. We can tell this immediately by the use of young children playing with dolls in the first scene. This is a stereotypical of a horror movie. Other indicators proving it’s a horror film is the choice of music, it is very slow and creepy which lets the audience know something is going to happen as the music builds up to an event. Which in this case is the girl rigidly standing up as if they are under a spell and walking to the window then throwing themselves out, followed by another women’s scream.

At the beginning of the clip shows an empty teapot, which suggests innocence as they aren't old enough to be drinking tea but also symbolises wealth. The young girls seem very happy as we see them laughing and smiling while playing with their toys. But as the Church bell chimes its almost as if they are put under a spell causing them to stand up in unison and drop their toys and trample over them, as they smash their toys the audience sense their innocence has smashed along with it. The fact that the Church bell was the indicator for this practical behaviour could suggest this is a religious film.

As the church bells chimed the girl all looked at the door with no expression on their face. When they look at the door it has a strong effect on the audience as we feel they’re looking at us. After the girls jumped out of the window the shot cut to a close up of a dolly’s face with messy hair and a dirty face which symbolises the girls after jumping out the window.

Finally, the sound starts off non diegetic with only the audience hearing it. Which cancels out the girl’s voice so all our attention is on the suspense building music. The music then changes to diegetic as the church bell chimes but the only real voices we hear is the woman screaming at the end.

To conclude this is a very effective opening clip of a film as it immediately draws you in making you intrigued as to why they jumped out the window. This clip abides by most of the stereotypes people link with horror genre.