Film Opening Task - Research Exisiting Film Openings In The Genre

Horror Film Openings

In Scream (1996) the first five minutes involve a girl on the phone to the murderer, unaware that it is the murderer, and eventually results in her death. The girl that gets murdered doesn't have any particular relation to the rest of the film, however her murder sets the mood for the rest of the film and introduces the murderer.

The opening for Jaws (1975), again, involves a young girl getting killed. This is mainly to introduce the 'killer', in this case is a shark, this is done through suggestion and implication to further the sense of fear and tension for the rest of the film.

Comparatively, in 28 Weeks Later (2007) the first opening minutes of the film very explicitly introduce the zombies and the hysteria of the characters, this may be due to the fact that the film is a sequel (so the viewers are already aware of what the scary thing is about the film) or it could be to immediately give the audience a sense of panic and fear.

For our 2 minute opening of a horror film, we decided that it would be best to have a similar idea to what happens in Scream and Jaws, where there is a victim of murder. However, it is not clear what or who the killer is, in order to add a sense of mystery and tension as it is left up to the audience's imagination through the power of suggestion.