Religious Elements within Horror

We've decided to look at the idea of possession for our supernatural horror film opening. After looking at many different possession films and also after reviewing our survey we carried out with the public we noticed that religious elements within a possession film was quite conventional and also was something that the audience of our film would like to see. I focused on the idea of using a bible as there is many different ways we could use it within the film:

- thrown into a wall.

- pages flicking open on there own.

- blood written over the pages.

- pages missing stuck on the walls.

- particular words circled that would have a scary meaning.

- religious drawings on the pages.

I decided to try a few of these ideas and take pictures to see which ones I found the most effective that we could use in any idea we decide to go forward with, even if it is not possession we still want the idea of religion to be presented in some way within our opening.

 

This is a bible under top lighting, I think this was effective as it showed clearly what it was and also gave some interesting shadows as it contrasted the rest of the dark room.

 

This is the bible laying open, we could use this in our opening if it randomly flung open to a significant page or was thrown across the room and opened on a certain page and be shown in this way on the floor. 

 

I wrote across the pages of the bible the word "die" I used fake blood and I think it worked effectively, if we went with this approach we could think of lots of different words or drawings we could use instead to have a big impact upon the audience. 

Here I circled key words from the bible that stood out to me using the fake blood again, we could choose specific words that had relevance to our opening and have close up camera shots of the pages  to make it as effective as possible.

 

 

 

 

Here I ripped pages out from the bible and stuck them on a plain wall underlining and circling certain words and drawing pictures over the pages to make it look as though someone is trying to figure something out from them. I think this would be effective on the wall of one of our scenes in our opening to set the scene and also give it some sort of religious reference. 

Deconstruction of a Stereotypical Little Girl's Room in Horror Films

The opening sequence of James Watkins' 2012 British horror film 'The Woman in Black' gives a prominent example of a stereotypical little girl's room which is linked to possession or the supernatural horror genre. 'The Woman in Black' is set in the Victorian Era and therefore the decor of the little girl's room featured in this opening sequence also dates back to that time. 

• The room that the three girls play in has many objects which are associated with little girls and also a stereotypical Victorian ghost stories. These objects include miniature porcelain tea sets and dolls with porcelain features such as the head (both of these items can be seen in the first image). Children's toys are a commonly used feature within the mise-en-scene of settings of horror films, especially those set in the Victorian era.

• Other children's toys can also be seen in the background of the room including an old fashioned baby carriage/pram (right). An old fashioned baby carriage is also a commonly used object in horror films set in the 1800's. The fact that these objects are old fashioned create an eerie feeling when placed in front of a modern audience. 

• The old fashioned dresses that the girls are wearing also convey and emphasise when the film is set and add to the eerie sense that the old fashioned toys convey. Again, to a modern audience, the dresses convey a typical Victorian ghost story and setting which creates a ghostly and eerie sense to the sequence.

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.