The Last Exorcism 2 Opening Scene Deconstruction

As a group we decided that we wanted to explore the idea of possession for our supernatural horror film opening so thought it would be a good idea to look at different film openings from possession films to see what sort of techniques we should be using, what props, camera angles, sounds, and plot we should be using to create a conventional scene.

I watched 'The Last Exorcism 2' and deconstructed the opening scene to get an idea of what we possession openings are like, this is the scene I looked at:

It begins with an establishing shot showing the whole house, it seems very ordinary and somewhere that anyone could live, which adds a sense of realism to the scene. But at the same time it looks quite secluded, there are no houses either side and there are lots of trees behind it. Also low key lighting is used as it looks as if it's been filmed to look like the early hours of the morning, this makes it more creepy and sinistering for the audience as most supernatural or horrific experiences in horror films are conventionally filmed during the night. 

The camera shows rooms of the house and then moves on to showing a bedroom with a couple in bed, the woman wakes up and walks out of the room leaving the man asleep in the bed. The lighting is more shadowy inside the house forshadowing that something bad may happen, also throughout this slow quiet non-diegetic music is played it sounds like a piano and sets an eery tone upon the house. 

The woman has left the room when something else jumps into the bed and wakes the man up as it does, he automatically thinks that it is his partner and talks to it saying "Jesus you're freezing" then he says her name and she comes through the door of the bedroom and he gains a shocked and panicked expression on his face not knowing what it next to him in the bed. He's breathing becomes slower the non-diegetic music drags out on the same key and he slowly begins to move to leave the bed and whatever is in it with him. This creates a huge build up for the audience as we know whatever is under the covers is some sort of villain in the film but it is still unknown what it is or what it's capable of.

As he leaves the bed whatever is in it starts making growling and unnatural noises, this panics the man and makes him rush out of the room and shut the door quickly behind him. A cut from the demon is then revealed on his leg as it tried to grab him as he escaped. The audience are then aware that whatever was in the bed is not human in any way. 

He then decides to enter back into the room to try and find out what the demon was. The non-diegetic music is made quieter and the same note is playing and being dragged out, more emphasis is made on diegetic noises, a pan lid rolls across the kitchen and spins in a circle for a long time before coming to a stop making a loud noise and creating more of a build up for the audience as it could jump out at any moment and we have no idea what could happen next. 

The woman then follows him and they both hide round a corner, he tells her to be quiet and tries to calm her as we can tell by her facial expressions she is very panicked and upset by what is happening. She nods and stays where she is whilst he continues to walk into the kitchen to try and find what was in the bed.

He walks round the corner very slowly and a huge build up is created, the audience is shown a little bit of the demon at a time and at first it is puzzling as to what it is until we see the whole picture and the person crouched on the kitchen counter, this is only shown for a split second, but is made scary because of non-diegetic music becoming louder and louder and other noises coming from the demon, we also immediately want to know what happens next as we know this will not end up well for the man.