Analysis of Woman in Black opening scene

My analysis of a horror opening scene is of the Woman in Black. This film has just recently come out in the UK this year 2012. In the opening scene the start is of 3 young girls having a tea party. The first angle is of one of the girls pouring in the imaginable tea. The shot is of just the cup, the jug and also you can see a bit of her hand. The light is coming from behind her as the shadows show. It is a close up of the pouring as it is being done. As she finishes pouring one she moves onto the other, as this happens suddenly creepy music comes in silently. When the jug touches the cup there is a slight dinging noise to show that they want to be creepy. This shows that you’re not supposed to think it’s a happy, cheerful party.

The shot moves and suddenly there is a doll on the screen. This is not an edit or a cut, the shot just moves to another place in the room. It is not a cute doll; it’s more of a dark, dirty looking doll. She feeds the doll and moves on to the next. The next doll is a china Asian doll, all the dolls shown are not normal. They are all types of creepy dolls. The shot edits and you can see all of the 3 girls playing with their dolls on the floor. Suddenly this shows you that they are in the Victorian ages as they are wearing Victorian style clothes and also that they are playing with dolls instead of games and electronics. This is a medium shot as you can see their bodies as they are sitting down. The light is coming from the window outside behind them to show you its a dark room and that the window has something to do with the scene. The creepy music is still playing throughout. The instrument is an organ playing the music and the tempo of it is slow to show the creepiness. An organ is used in churches and weird places to represent and show the viewer that the music is scary.

The 3 girls are all smiling at each other; it’s all in slow motion. They are all playing with their dolls, brushing the dolls hair, feeding them and dressing them. They all see something and suddenly get up and walk towards the door. It looks like all 3 of them are in a trance. The camera shows shots of their feet, hands and heads to show the audience what’s happening. This whole scene is supposed to lure you into the film and want to watch it all the way through. The 3 girls walk towards the window. As they do this they drop all their toys and tread on their toys; breaking them. Once again this is all the slow motion so you get to see what’s happening. They get to the window and as they step up to it there is a shot of their hands on the lever opening the window. They open it and suddenly just jump out. This leaves suspense and makes the viewer want to watch more and makes the viewer wonder why they jumped out.

Peter Eyre