Paranormal Activity 3 Deconstruction

TIn this sequence from paranormal activity 3 I payed close attention to the mise en scene, sound, lighting and editing throughout. As for our coursework we are focusing on the supernatural horror genre so I made sure to notice all the different techniques we can use when filming.

This establishing shot of the little girls room goes on for a long time at the beginning, as it is being filmed in a documentary style so keeping it on the same shot for a long time makes it seem more realistic to the audience. Many objects within this make it clear to us that this is a little girls room, there are music notes and posters on the wall, colourful bed sheets, a pink light in the corner and toys in the other corner. Low key lighting is used so the whole room is quite dark which tells us this is supposed to be night time which is typically when spirits in supernatural horrors appear.

After a while one of the little girls wake up as objects fall of shelves and the screen at the back of the room turns on. She whispers to the other girl and wakes her up also, these are the only sounds made in this part as it creates more fear to the audience as it seems more realistic.

More supernatural activity starts to occur in the room, the balls hanging from the ceiling start to sway backwards and forwards, toys in the corner of the room start to move up and down and more objects around the room start to move. One of the little girls starts to panic, she screams and calls for her mum whilst the other stays quite calm and tries to quieten her, this suggests to us that she may have dealt with this spirit before and therefore knows what to do, she doesn't seem afraid with what's happening. The lighting in the room is still dark and the camera angle has not changed.

Everything calms down and the activity in the room comes to a stop, the little girls stops screaming then suddenly the blanket on her bed is pulled off of her and thrown across the room. This is unexpected for the audience so makes us jump as we believed it was beginning to stop, when the blanket is pulled a loud wind noise is made followed by a loud bang. The girl then begins to panic again, she shouts and tries to run to get her mum but is pulled over by the spirit.

The shot then switches to a picture of the mums room, she is fast asleep and cannot hear anything that is happening in the other room, no sounds are made from within this room. This creates an alarming feeling for the audience as we know that the mum cannot do anything to help the little girl. 

She crawls back into the room and her bed and other objects are dragged across the room, the sounds being made become louder and the little girl on the floor is still very panicked but the other one still remains quite calm and doesn't do anything drastic. She then gets dragged across the floor again and out of the camera shot, whilst screaming very loudly, the audience are aware the whole time the mum doesn't know this is happening.

The other girl then reacts to everything, she screams and runs after the other little girl telling the spirit to "let her go" she talks to it directly and gives it a name, suggesting a more personal relationship between them and something definitely has happened with this spirit and her before. 

She tells the spirit she'll do what he wants, all supernatural noises being made stop, everything is quiet then a door slams and the other girl runs back into the room crying. The sounds of the room return to normal.