The Terrifying: Brilliance of the Opening Screne from Terrorfier 3

I recently watched a horror slasher film in theaters, terrifier 3. This movie is a greatly welcome new feature for this genre as it definitely needed some breath of fresh air from the staleness that the slasher films are of late. The violence is creative, thrilling and horrifying to say the least. With finally an iconic slasher that truly lives up to the classics such as Freddy Kruger or Michael Myers. 

The opening scene of this film truly stuck with me and I realized my opening scene should also be able has to set the mood and engage the audience and make them feel great emotion that leaves an immense impact on them. Even though, the film I am making is vastly different in tone and themes to this one, I wanted to be inspired by the core essence of the scene so I can make something just as remarkable.

opening scene description: its Christmas eve set in a normal suburban house hold. The daughter tells her mom to put a plate of cookies for Santa clauses or she won't go to sleep. The wife nags her sleeping husband to eat the cookies set on the kitchen counter before he leaves for work. He is at first bitter and cranky but then calmly assures his wife that he will do it so that their small daughter is happy. Then, the daughter from some noises coming down stairs, she believes it might be Santa and tells her older brother to come with her and catch him. The older brother tells her leave him alone she quietly goes down stairs and sees the back of a person wo is wearing a Santa costume. this individual then walks up stairs not noting the small girl whose down, he goes to the children’s room first and violently murders the child. Then going to the parents room and quietly killing the husband which the wife slowly wakes up and realizes what’s truly happening. Then a chase in sues between the wife and the killer. The wife tries to protect her kids but finds the disfigured corpse of her older child and then alerts her other child to hide. eventually she dies too. At the end, the killer eats the cookies placed in the beginning and then sees that he might have missed one member of the family as the wife was alerting another child. He sees a cupboard that is ever so lightly shaking and opens it to find the small frightened and he gives her an ominous gleeful wave. End scene and title display.

opening scene analysis: -

camera angles, shot, and movement: as I mentioned before at the end, art finds the little girl hiding and gives her a wave. a shot reverse shot is used to show the reactions of both characters, and when the shot reverses to art gleefully smiling we the audience know what is going to happen as then the scene ends and cuts to the title. Slow pan movement is present throughout the scene as the camera does this movement following art throughout the house, even when he is out of view. This is done so that we can track the movements along with art. a close up shot of art's face happens when he is locked from one side of the master bedrooms door and breaks a part of it to show only his face.   

sound: I feel sound is one of the most underappreciated elements in horror films, this aspect elevates the scene drastically. This scene especially uses sound masterfully. The sounds of the axe cutting through the wood and flesh are so loud and hard to hear, the context of the sound makes it unsettling especially when art violently murders a little boy. We do not see it happen as it is asynchouros noise in the scene but the sound its self, the chopping of body parts and the child’s whimper, it made my heart sank and this was the more effective way of showing it then actually showing him kill the child as the audience can imagine the horrors happening, and due to it happening to a child our biological need to protect children kicks in and we (audience) are left with nothing to do but just hear the sounds of murder echoing. That moment stuck with me and horrified me to my core. The Christmas music also was used as contrapuntal sound as it did not fit with the setting and was used to make the audience feel tenser.

mis en scene:  the scene establishes a normal familiar setting by having a set drop of a quiet suburban house and casting generic members of an atomic family, trying to make the audience feel comforted until it is taken away from, the calm before the storm you could say. the mood shifts into a very dark, scary tone and shock value is ever present in the second half of the scene. By using blocking in the scene, which directions should the characters go to, it captures a thrilling chase sequence. also, when art is killing his first victim, the little boy, the camera doesn’t follow him to the boys bedroom but the camera is fixed with art not being out of the shot. By not explicitly showing the killing of the boy but still make it even more horrifying as with context it makes us the audience feel we are in the shot as it is empty and we are just outsider the bedroom not being able to help. the costume design of art is so unique and terrifying, not in his usual clown get up but with a Santa suit. It gives it creepy sinister feel as we know it feels wrong as Santa is supposed to be cheering kids not slaughtering them into bits. The acting by David Howard Thornton is as cunning and sadistic as always. His wide variety of facial expressions is an integral part to his character, his expressions are exaggerated to such a degree that it can make a person feel unsettle, an uncanny valley feel.

editing: there’s not much to write home about the editing, just using straight cuts and other common cuts. One thing you could say is that the filter for the scene gives it a nostalgic Christmas vibe with vibrant colors of red, greed, and yellow present. It feels like the movie was shot in 90s, in a good way. 

composition: it was deliberately done to make the actors be placed in specific areas in the rule of thirds. Using the example of art being locked from the other side of the door and breaking it so you can see his face. He was placed so that we can focus all attention on to him. the camera sometimes changed the focus of the camera so the audience can't make out clearly what’s there in blurry back ground which was a nice creepy touch.

Inconclusion, this opening scene was a master full way of setting the mood of the entire movie and the scene itself works on its own right. This scene taught me how I should film and act in my opening scene.