The opening to the film begins when the credits start to fade onto the screen in a blood red font this symbolizes blood, death and evil to the audience which straight away brings tension to the film and creates a sense of interest for the audience. Whilst this is happening the Halloween theme music is playing in the background, this music is very high pitched and uses string instruments to create horror and suspense for the viewers.
Once the credits have been shown there is a ‘vls’ (very long shot) of the house this is used to set the scene, this is a subjective point of view from the killer .This can be related to the German expressionism where they would use bumpy camera movement to seize the audiences concentration .They use a handheld camera to do this scene as it emphasises the killers movements to the audience. As the Killer begins to make his way around the house be looks up to see the light go off. When this happens there is a sharp shrill sound which enforces the killer’s actions.
When Michael gets the knife, his murder weapon, the audience begin to realize his intentions once again. Once Michael has collected his murder weapon he makes his way into the house and as he starts to move to the stairs there is a high pitched piano note that make the audience fearful of what Michael is going to do. When the girls boyfriend comes down the stairs Michael stops for a short while to let him by then begins to escalate the stairs, as he begins to go up the grand farther clock starts to chime loudly and for a long time, I think this emphasisis that the girls time is running out, this will have a great effect on the audience as it will be shocking, for them and make them want to watch on.
Once the boy has reached the top of the stairs he turns into another room and collects the mask to change his identity when doing the murder. Ironically, earlier on this same mask is used by the boyfriend to amuse his girl friend with. Like in the rest of Halloween there is low key lighting like shadows and darkness to build suspense for the audience.
Whilst this is going on in the back ground you can hear Michael’s sister humming quietly which symbolizes her innocence and purity of heart .Michael then turns and heads for his sisters room, when he reaches there the camera is at a high angle to show Michael's power and control over his sisters life. The murder then starts to take place and you see how Michael brutishly slaughters his own sister which will make the audience feel instantly shocked and surprised at what they are seeing .At the time that the film was made women were thought to be weak and innocent, so having a girl as the victim was used to show the societies perception of women at that time.
Michael then walks out side and the camera changes from a subjective view to a objective view and this is when the audience first find out that the horrific murder was carried out by a young boy which plunges the audience into a state of disbelief and alarm as at the time it was made it was a very strange thing to see a child as a murderer.
In conclusion codes and conventions are used to capture the audiences attention and to make the film interesting to watch, without the codes and conventions it would be not very suspenseful .It catches the audiences attention by using shocking scenes such as the murder.
