The opening sequence that I am analysing is from the film ‘Drag me to hell’ (2009) which is directed by Sam Raimi. Drag Me to Hell won the award for Best Horror Film at the 2009 Scream Awards and the 2010 Awards; in addition it made a gross amount of about $90 million. The plot revolves around a young woman who’s trying to impress her boss by refusing to extend a loan to a gypsy woman. This resulted in the gypsy woman cursing the young girl which, after three days of escalating torment, will plunge her into the depths of hell to burn for eternity. This film helped me to come up with ideas for our opening sequence as its one of my favourite horror films.
The sequence starts off with eerie music then a skull jumps into the shot, which is ghost house pictures logo. It then goes on to a long shot of a house this represents a beginning of a story and for the audience to familiarise themselves with the surroundings. When the characters in the shot start to speak we realise there speaking a different language, and there’s subtitles on the screen. This grabs the audience’s attention and from there frantic voices were eager to know what the future holds for these characters. The young boy has come to a gypsy woman because he has got cursed. As he lies down we see the surroundings from his point of view and how twisted it is. This causes tension to the audience and makes them wonder what happened to the young boy. Suddenly the door blows up with a faint growl in the background which makes the audience jump. The quiet atmosphere has now changed to a loud setting where the boy is being chased around the old decrepit house. It ends with the boy being thrown over the stairs, only to be dragged to hell. This gives the audience a rush of surprise and bewilderment. The people that seemed to be the main characters have died which the audience confused and wanting to watch more.
The next thing the audience see is the titles, which create a build up of tension as the music is getting louder and little pictures of monsters are appearing on the screen. The front of the title represents the genre of the film and hints to the audience the significance that it contains. It then goes on to show a blonde haired, blue eyed young women driving in the car, with just silence. This is very dramatic as the music has gone from loud to quiet suddenly, and after seeing a young child being dragged to hell the audience are wondering and dreading the same thing might happen to her. The director chose this girl to play the role of the protagonist because she has a sense of innocence upon her, and the audience will feel attached to her. The woman is shown driving herself to work and helping people out with a smile on her face. This shows that she is a nice person, we can also tell by the calm and happy music playing in the background.
Later on in the film the gypsy woman comes to the young lady for help. It begins with a close up of the old woman’s gnarly hands tapping on the table. This represents inpatients and that there’s only a matter of time until something bad happens. The old gypsy woman is represented to be very ill and poor. This is shown by her coughing into her tissue, her discoloured eye and her, trying to steal all the sweets on the table. This shows the audience what her characteristics are like and for them to sympathise for her. However the young woman under pressure decides to kick the gypsy lady out of her house, just to impress her boss. The old woman begs to her on her hands and knees whilst kissing her skirt. This represents how desperate she is and shocks the audience as to how far she would go to stay in her house. Unfortunately the so called innocent girl pushed the women to the floor and called security which only aggravated her. Dark music starts to play in the background when the old women entered the scene and it died down when she left it, which represents and warns the audience that she’s a dark character and we haven’t seen the last of her yet. Whilst the women was walking away the music died down and when the audience had just relaxed she turns around and charges at the young lady with sudden loud music in the background. This makes the audience have a rollercoaster of emotions, and creates confusion as to what it’s all going to result in. I feel that the reason this film did so well is because the audience were constantly having there emotions and thoughts put to the test. The main thing that I took from this film was how to create tension and when it’s the right time to release it.
I have also decided to analysis the poster that they used worldwide for this film. The poster involves an element of the supernatural which establishes to the target audience the kind of evil or villain that is in the film. The poster conveys the horror and pain that can be expected in the film in a simple yet effective way. However the only bad thing I can find about this poster is that it gives away the end of the film. In the poster she is seen being dragged into hell which insinuates that’s how the film ends. This can also been showed by the title of the film; in addition this might stop people from watching the film as it may seem too predictable and like all American horrors.
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