OPENING TO SCREAM ANALYSIS

The scream movie's opening scene first starts by introducing us to a young, slim teenage blonde girl answering the telephone to a mysterious unknown caller. The blonde girl plays the common role in many horror movies as the 'dumb blonde girl'; this role connotes that she is naive, helpless and vulnerable to all danger in the film especially if left alone, which in this case she is. Firstly she acts reasonable and puts the phone down when realising the caller assumingly has the wrong number. The caller continues to ring and act strangely by trying to conversate with the girl; the non-diegetic voice of the caller has an extremely mysterious voice and it works perfectly to create a scary atmosphere for the audience. This atmosphere is created entirely by the fact that we have no idea at this point who the caller is; an audience is more scared of something they cannot see compared to something they can.The camera includes mid-shots from behind of the waiste upwards and over the shoulder shots to give the impression to the audience that the girl is being followed. The girl begins to conversate with the uknown caller being the naive teenage girl she is, she tells the caller what she's doing. As the girl begins to realise that she is talking to some form of murderer who can see her every move, she begins to race around the house locking all the doors, this gives off a trapped sensation due to her now being isolated in the house. Non-diegetic music is played in the background and becomes racier and racier as the scene goes on building up tension for the audience and also letting us know something is going to happen. This whole scene is based in the home of the teenage girl, by doing this it removes all the connotations of security and safety that a family home should have and turns it into a trapped and dangerous mad house.