Horror genre opening film analysis of Scream - 1996

Opening film analysis of scream

Analysed the first opening 2 minutes and 30 seconds of this film.

Scream opens with a diegetic sound of a phone ringing and a match on action shot of a young female women picking up the phone. It then switches to a close up shot of her happily answering the phone, she then has a short and strange conversation with a deep voiced man, asking her questions like “who she was” and “what her number was”. She swiftly ends the call and the camera switches to medium shot of her walking away from the phone. A diegetic sound of the phone rings again, and the camera switches to a close up of the girls shocked and apprehensive face. This creates enigma codes as the audience want to know why the phone keeps ringing and who’s on the other end of the line? The same match on action scene repeats in a way, the female answers the phone again to the same deep voice. There is then a close up shot of the girl speaking to the male, as he tries to entertain her she smiles flirtatiously about the attention she is receiving but quickly ends the call.

A wide angle shot shows the top of an old, rusty tree and pans down to see a wooden swing hanging from it blowing in the wind, this is a cliché from a typical horror film. A close up shot shows the female putting popcorn onto an oven, when an off screen sound of a telephone rings again. For the next 20 secs or so the camera pans round the female on the phone, the male begins to ask her questions about whether she likes horror movies or not. As she responds she begins to slowly rub her hands along the knives placed in the kitchen, another typical cliché for a horror genre. She then slowly walks into the living room, carrying on this conversation the man asks “what's your name” she responds “why do you want to know?” and he replies “because I want to know who I’m looking at”. A close up shot on her face shows her shock and confusion.