Horror Openings.

This is the opening to Halloween (1978)

The scene begins with the non diegetic sound of the famous Halloween soundtrack, a fast paced beat that resembles the sounds of chimes and bells. As the music continues to a black empty screen, a Halloween pumpkin appears glowing and the credits roll in orange colour, symbolising Halloween. The music seems to get faster as the credits continue creating a sense of fear and discomfort in the viewer, the camera gets slowly closer the pumpkin until all is left is the ominous glow of the pumpkin eye. The light from the pumpkin goes out and the film begins. A diegetic sound of children singing a creepy Halloween song follows and the screen reads “Halloween Night 1963” we then cut to an establishing shot of a large house. One long continuous shot follows as we see what the character is seeing through their eyes. This is made clear by the diegetic sounds of breathing and the use of a steady-cam, a form on handheld camera. This is further expressed when the character picks up a clown mask, puts it on and all we see for the remainder of the scene is everything through the eye holes of the mask. The character proceeds to his sister’s bedroom, she is undressed and it is hinted she had sexual activity with her boyfriend – her then subsequent death plays on the common cliché in horror films that a women will die early on and that sexual activity relates to the character being killed. Diegetic sounds of screaming are heard as the girl is stabbed to death. The parents of the girl arrive at the scene and the killer is then revealed to be a young boy in a clown costume – the brother of the murdered teen. His name is revealed to be Michael.