After picking the opening called "Everything Seems Normal" I wanted to go over the types of clothing worn in these types of horror openings.
Two Examples of this Opening Where We Can See the Clothing
The Babadook (2014)
The Babadook (2014) - Opening Scene of little boy , hell bent on killing the monster on it's own
In this opening scene from The Babadook (2014) we see a mother and son. As we look at their clothing, they are wearing normal clothing, and they are shown doing a normal routine. The only thing slightly out of place is the child dressing as a magician and a ghost buster but when you truly think about it children love dressing up so it truly isn't that out of place. Looking around the house, everything seems to be natural except for the slight hints of horror like the dead tree giving a slightly creepy vibe to the movie from the get-go. Which is perfect because this type of opening should always appear to be normal except for subtle hints that something bad is approaching.
The Witch
OPENING SCENE | THE WITCH
In this opening scene from The Witch, we see a character dressed in Plain, colorless style of clothing. We can get an understanding that this family is living under a religious authority, where they are not allowed to be self-expressive (as we can see with the deadpan faces and everyone wearing the same style of clothing. We can already get an idea that they are living under psychological pressure before we even see the entity/supernatural threat (essential to this opening type as the horror is present but not yet truly shown/ it is implied so far). From their clothing alone we get an idea that they are isolated as it is worn and homemade (which is different from the clothing of the rest of English settlers inside of the colony).
So, What Does This Mean?
In terms of clothing this means that the characters need to have clothing appropriate for the time period as well as the situation they are in. From these clothing we get an idea of their normal routines and how this movie will move along. In these types of opening, we get an idea of 3 main things from the clothing they are wearing.
There are many different types of openings that horror films use but there are mostly 4 popular ones such as: cold openings (Horror Kill Sequence), Red Herring, Flashback (Origin Opening), and the "Everything seems normal" opening. But in today's blog I will be going over only 3 of them.
Cold Open (Horror Kill Sequence)
For this I wanted to pick The Nun 11 as an example of a great cold opening:
The Nun II (2023) Opening Scene | Warner Bros. UK
From this opening scene from the Nun 11 you can see a cold open contains 3 main things
A standalone, violent attack (whether it be supernatural or not)
It features new characters who are not the main protagonist
And in this case it's designed to re-establish Valak's threat and set the tone for the rest of the film
Other popular examples of some cold openings are scream, The Conjuring 2, or It Chapter 2
Red Herring
A great example of a red herring opening is the film The Ring (2002):
Opening Scene | The Ring (2002)
From this opening from The Ring, we can see a red herring opening contains 4 main things:
A misleading clue or false assumption
Characters or events that seem important but aren't
In the case of the ring the setup of the two teens joking about the cursed videotape appear to be the main plot but that misleads the audience
Other popular examples of some red herring openings are The Grudge (2004), and The Bye Bye Man
"Everything Seems Normal"
A great example of a everything seems normal kind of opening is Hereditary (2018)
Hereditary beginning scene
calm, routine/everyday life
Subtle hints of tension (should not be overly obvious)
A slow leadup into the first sign of a disturbance
Other popular examples of this are The Babadook, and A Quiet Place
Which One Do I Want To Do
For my film I would like to pick the "Everything Seems Normal" opening as this is not bad to do in 2 minutes or less. Also, from what I have seen not many actors are truly needed for this type of opening as most of the time it's focused on a normal day (before it all goes to hell). Which will be easier for me as a director in terms of holding each person accountable for their parts.
After researching and selecting the genre Horror, I was thinking well what makes horror, horror?
What needs to be Inside of a Horror Film
Understanding Horror Genre Conventions and Obligatory Scenes | Story Grid Writing Guide by Darian on Books
Even though this video is based off of Horror books it still applies to horror films as many popular horror films are based off of their book versions for example: The Shining (1980), It (2010), and The Exorcist (1973).
Horror Conventions
Monster/evil force
Have a monster/killer present that will do horrible things towards the main cast
The evil force such as a paranormal or demonic entity causing the horrible actions
Character Isolation
Denying of the characters to easily get help
This plays on many peoples psychological fears of being alone/isolated
This can be depicted in many different ways such as separation of group or a character/group alone in the wilderness.
When the group splits up and everyone is alone it causes more of a scare as the character must face challenges all on their own.
Driving attention towards the film as the audience is interested in seeing how each different character will react towards the danger
Also making them wonder well what will happen? who will die?
Characters ignore warning signs
One of the most popular examples of this is a creepy noise in a basement and the characters saying "lets go check it out"
These characters ignore the obvious signs such as calling the police or just leaving the house and instead go towards the obvious danger
This gives the audience something to be worried about like obviously knowing that something bad is going to happen and have that sinking feeling, amping up the tension and anticipation towards what is going to happen next.
Dread & Suspense
Every time a character makes the wrong decision it is increasing tension, leading to an increase in the dread & suspense that comes with the audience knowing something horrible is about to happen.
By drawing this out and using jump scares that aren't the monster to scare the character making the audience believe that something bad is about to happen but in reality it isn't increasing the suspense in the situation.
Themes of morality
In many horror movies there is an unlikeable flaw with a character which is a signal that the character is about to die.
Bad people/people with bad morals are people who are going to die.
This can be approached in many ways such as the bad character dying due to the monster, or them getting a redemption arc just to get killed by the monster.
But also those same bad guys that got the redemption arc could actually survive in the end because they decided to get their acts together to make it out alive.
Then you have the good guys who may or may not survive because they are ignoring the warning signs or one wrong move sends them into an early grave.
Morality plays a role in these films (not always in the most obvious of ways)
Inciting threat
By starting off with a dead of a character either bad or good by the monster/evil force immediately it shows us the inciting threat
This sets up the fact that a monster/evil force is coming for the characters allowing for the audience to know right away what type of film it is.
Confrontation
This is the group of people who go lets say camping and are being picked off one by one. Until it gets down to the main character who is put up against this monster that has been slowly (or fast) picking them off one by one.
Escape & Survival
The meat of the horror movie is the main character trying to survive, trying to escape the monster/evil force, or maybe even assist with helping their friends escape
Biggest part of the movie as it is the pitch of exactly what is happening/going to happen.
Hope is lost
There is always a point in the film where the main character has either lost all their friends, or they are one of the only characters left.
This leaves this character to feel backed up into a corner thinking that this is it and that they won't make it out alive
This character knows that they are about to die
Final Showdown
The audience sees the main character pull through somehow, they see this character fighting tooth and nail to survive
The audience may believe that this character will die at first but this character is not giving up fighting for their life
Somehow this character finds something that then defeats this monster
Example
After finding all of these horror conventions I wanted to find a scene from a horror movie that puts some if not all of these conventions to work.
Tarot (2024) - Libra Ladder Kill Scene | Movieclips
This scene from the movie Tarot shows the character all alone in a isolated environment. As she walks closer to the attic ladder we hear a demonic giggle, this character ignores this clear warning sign and still thinks its her "dorm mates" up there when she knows that they already left for the holidays. We as the audience feel a sense of dread as she begins to climb up the ladder as we can already tell the demonic giggle plus the dark lighting present in the scene is a tell-tale sign that something bad is about to happen. We see her shine light onto the dark attic where we can see creepy things also adding onto the dread we already felt. We see something move along with a sudden noise adding onto the building tension. Then when the character spins around nothing is there. We hear this running up sound but when the character turns around nothing is there increasing the tension.
We see the lights flickering adding onto the warning signs as a flickering light is a popular indication that something is about to go down. It goes dark and we again hear the giggle adding suspense as the audience is thinking will she make it out? Is she going to die? As she looks back up in the attic we see it illuminated by candles (which was not there at first), along with upside down crosses indicating that the monster might be nun style. We hear the conversation that she had earlier with her friend in a more twisted way indicating that the cards may be what is summoning these monsters. Then we get introduced to the monster which has a nun style of clothing. This happens as the character looks up from the card and sees the monster screaming in her face causing her to fall down the stairs (after the voice says you will suffer a crushing blow) this indicates that she will in fact not survive and instead she will die. We think that she will escape by seeing her try to crawl away before being promptly dragged back underneath the stairs. Allowing the audience to get an idea on what will happen next. The monster repeatedly drives the stairs into the back of the victim until she died.
After thinking over many genres of movies, I have shortened it to a genre that I have lots of interest in Horror. Horror has many different aspects which I will be researching and going over in this blog post.
Horror
What Makes A Great Horror Movie? - David F. Sandberg By Film Courage
In this video I found out about the many things Horror movies need to be considered a "great" horror movie. But I will break it down into two main things:
Timing
With the timing it is all about the suspense you are giving your audience. You could always just make a random loud noise and that could scare them. But if the audience knows that something bad is going to happen but doesn't know when it adds onto the "scariness" of the movie. So, when that jump scare is finally delivered it leaves the audience to feel genuine fear more than a random loud noise could. Also, the way you time the jump scares could move how your audience feels about the monster/killer if you start off strong with a sudden jump out, it could lead to the audience expecting the monster/killer to come out of nowhere.
Pacing
In horror style movies the pacing plays a huge role especially when it comes to introducing the killer/monster and creating a lasting impression on the audience. For horror as the movies continues to go on the situation the character is in becomes increasingly worse. For example, this clip:
The Ritual (2017) / Starting Scene / Robert Killed By Burglar's Posted by MoviesDestination
This is a scene from the 2017 movie called The Ritual. At first it starts off slow by two friends going to buy some drinks. In the clip you can see the light flicker and in most horror movies this indicates something bad is about to happen. Then the character face drops making the audience think well what happened, this is quickly followed by a pan down allowing us to see the injured woman. Then it is followed up by robbers suddenly breaking into the store and starts to try and rob one of them. At first the audience thinks that Robert will just handover the wallet and everything will be okay, we see him deliver this expectation and give over the wallet. However, they then tell him to take off his ring, but he doesn't, he tries to talk out of giving up his ring but, this leads to his death. This is a great example on why pacing matters because no one would have expected a simple stop into the beer shop to end with death.
Hello everyone, my name is Kayla, and, in this blog, I wish to share my process of making a film opening!! But before all of that I want to tell you guys all about me!
My Favorite Things to Do
One of my favorite things to do in my free time is watching musicals. My favorite musicals right now are Mean Girls and Wicked the musical. In the past month I have been exploring into the Ballad and Opera territory, so I am definitely expanding my pallet. But also, while relaxing I love to read books! One of my favorite book series at the moment is the Cruel Prince series, and my favorite book in general is The Odyssey. While reading books I like listening to artists like Laufey and Evanscence. I love playing games like Genshin Impact and Minecraft.
BJ's Cookies and Cream Pizookie
This photo is when I went to BJs. I love going out and getting desserts with my family. I enjoy baking so I often take inspiration from famous restaurants desserts in order to incorporate it into my baking arsenal.
Activities I enjoy
I enjoy playing beach volleyball with my friends on the weekends, and meeting with my book club to talk about books together where we end up spending way too much money at Barnes and Nobel. After finishing up with all of my work for the day I enjoy spending time with my dog before going to bed. Going out with my friends is also an activity I enjoy engaging in with my friends. I often hang out with them I believe it to be about 3 times a month.
Favorite Movies
My all-time favorite movies are Carrie (both 1976 and 2002), Scream (all of them), Sinners, IT (2017), Malignant, Get Out, It follows, Final Destination (all of them), and The Shining. As you can see, I am I horror movie enthusiast always up to watching more horror movies! But my all-time favorite franchise is Final Destination, and my favorite movie is Malignant.
