Thriller Film Research

Name: The Silence of the Lambs

Age Certificate: 18

Genre: Psychological Horror Thriller

Director: Jonathan Demme

Opening Notes: The establishing shot begins with a forest of bare trees against a grey sky (creating a rather gloomy depressing atmosphere). The camera points down from the tops of the trees onto the dark, misty ground where a girl enters the frame and is shown running towards the camera. The fog that surrounds her and the bottoms of trees gives a feeling of unease as you don't know what could be hiding in amongst it... It's made even worse by the girl running as we do not know why. The possibility that she is running away from someone or something is the first thing that springs to mind. It's not until we, the audience, realise that she is taking part in an assault course of some sort that we feel comfortable with this scene.

The non-diegetic music that is being played over the top of the establishing shot is a very low almost droning score mixed together with a very high pitched noise. The 2 sounds put together make the scene quite tense as your expecting a big build up in sound and with that should come a build up of drama.

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Name: The Orphanage

Age Certificate: 15

Genre: Horror Thriller

Director: Guillermo Del Toro

Opening Notes: The establishing shot for this film is set in what could be perceived at first as a park or large garden. A long shot of a young girl is shown. She is knocking on a tree and turning around after each repetition of the phrase "one, two, three, knock on the door!". At first it seems that she is just playing with herself but as time goes on more young children appear behind her with their arms outstretched stopping still as she turns around. There is no overlaid non-diegetic music on this and the girls sweet voice is all you can hear. But there is something sinister about the way in which the children approach her in the innocent game. 

The shot cuts to a medium close up of the girl still knocking on the tree. The hand of a child suddenly appears from the right side of the frame and the game is over as they touch the girl and the shot cuts to the children running through a line of washing. They continue to run around the garden with the diegetic laughter and a non-diegetic score that makes the scene feel fairly positive. But the happy atmosphere is not lived as the shot cuts to show a woman on the phone talking about the young orphan girl who was knocking on the tree. She mentions that she will be "very happy in her new home" but that "we haven't told her yet". The last comment suggests to the audience that something is going to go wrong with the arrangement. It's the start to the wrong goings of the film.

The atmosphere created in the opening is created to appear happy and cheerful but in a way so that the audience is able to pick up on the unease of it all. Almost as though the friends playing is too perfect.