Horror film- Insidious film opening scene analysis

The film genre is immediately introduced through the use of strong and thrilling high pitched music which builds up suspense combined with the setting being dark and sinister which would make the audience feel the tension and also feel uncomfortable. The character is introduced through the use of a drop shot which denotes a sleeping figure, the character is firstly introduced which connotes that they play an important role in the film. After the character is introduced shown to be sleeping the first effective camera shot, the panning shot draws the attention away from the character which connotes to the audience that the character is dangerous, the panning shot gives the sense of a person scared and walking away. The pitch of the music gets higher and what is believed to be a violin makes the atmosphere creepier and more uncomfortable to the audience. The camera zooms into a silhouette in the window which denotes unknown figure which adds to the tension of what is going to potentially occur. The camera rotates and zooms and denotes a face which is hidden in the shadows which adds to the uncertainty of what could occur next. Suddenly and unexpectedly the pitch and tone of the music increases dramatically and the title 'Insidious' is denoted in a bright red. It flashes which connotes a fire like appeal to emphasis to the audience that one of the main themes is danger. The choice of colour for the title and the shape has a resemblance to a devil which are known reflect bad in the world. The red represents blood and therefore connotes danger, death and violence so therefore it gives an insight to the audience of what is yet to come as the film commences. In the next scene the next shot is a close up and denotes a big wooden house which is black and white mostly overpowered by black which gives connotes to the audience that bad things occur inside the house. The sky is dark grey and cloudy which is dramatic which sets the tone of the film. The actors names are briefly shown, again in red. Their names each one by one are given the effect of disappearing into smoke. The fact that they disappear one by one connotes that the characters in the film are likely to be killed one by one as the smoke indicates fire, therefore fire represents danger. These names of the actors are shown each separately in different shots if various places in the house which is sinister and give the impression that the characters are each killed in these different rooms. The atmosphere is dark and acts another usual characteristic of a horror film by adding to the suspense and uncertainty in the film. However even with no sound effect just the blackness of the night alone is eerie.