Analysing Horror Genre Opening Scenes - 'It Follows'
The scene opens with an establishing shot of a typical suburban street (a conventional setting often found in the opening scenes of films from the horror genre), with the camera slowly panning across the street. The pace of the camera movement is typical of the genre, creating tension and anticipation for the spectator.
The lighting is low-key, another typical aspect of cinematography found in horror films, suggesting that something sinister has occurred, or will shortly happen. An impact sound of the door of a house opening and creaking as it shuts, makes the audience jump; these types of pleonastic sounds are common in the genre, creating jump scares for the audience. The girl who emerges from the door is wearing only underwear which, alongside her panicked figure behaviour as she runs and looks repeatedly over her shoulder, present her as vulnerable, as the stereotypical first victim common in the horror genre.
The colour of her white outfit symbolises her innocence, but her state of undress and the red heels she is wearing, possibly mark her out as promiscuous (a typical reason why female victims are often killed in films from the genre).
The camera movement is a slow tracking shot so the viewer gets the feeling of the girl being stalked and followed. The framing is loose so the girls is presented as vulnerable and alone. Moreover, as is typical in the genre, the tracking shot helps to place the audience with the character so that later when she dies the audience are more sensitive to it.
The slow build up of the foreboding non-diegetic music, paired with the slow pace of the editing (the first part of the scene is a single long take, creating unbearable tension and suspense) helps to add to the intensity of the scene, further unsettling the audience. This is re-emphasised by the slow zoom out from the house as the girl goes back inside, before re-emerging and driving off.
The first cut shows the girl driving her car at night. Through her body language in the car, with her looking over her shoulder, we get a sense of her fear. We then see her in an abandoned location of the beach (isolated locations are typical of the mise-en-scene found in horror films) which creates the expectation of her not having any help. Her vulnerability is again emphasised by the slow creeping camerawork (a slow zoom towards her loosely-framed body, shot in extreme long shot). A jump cut to the girl as she speaks to her dad on the phone is unsettling for the audience and is typical of the discontinuity editing found in the horror genre.
The editing throughout is extremely slow with the first take being over two minutes long, creating tension and anticipation for the audience. The final shots, disturbing images of the girl killed and her legs twisted and bloody, is typical of the gore found in the genre, and reinforces to the audience that she is indeed the film's first victim.
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