Explore how the elements of the horrorgenre are shaped to make the opening extract grip and scare the audience

The film ‘Jaws’ was released on the 20th of June 1975 and was directed by Steven Spielberg. This film had an effect on the public Straight away as it was released just before the summer holidays started. The holidays are a time when people spend time sunbathing on the beach and swimming in the sea, but as Spielberg had released a horror film about giant shark terrorising beach lovers, the public became too afraid to swim in the sea and get in a boat.  So many people were already scared of watching the actual film after only seeing the trailer. This created an element of tension in the audience before the film even begun.

In the film, the beginning shows the camera looking through something’s eyes moving through the sea, and the music is very strange and chilling. This is the first time that the audience is introduced to the music. It is building up suspense, as you can’t see what is moving through the water. There is then a sudden change of atmosphere as the audience is shown the friendly environment of a group of young adults sitting around a campfire singing, playing instruments and socializing. We then see a man and a woman flirting with each other they run off together for a midnight swim. The male believes he is going to have sex with the women so follows her stumbling around the sand dunes. On the way to the water the woman strips, and in horror movies getting naked results in death.  She jumps in to the sea and the drunken man still trying to take his clothes off collapses on the shore.  The audience is taken underwater again and the scary music starts again to the chilling music.  So the audience now relate to this music knowing that something is going to happen.   The thing that grips the audience most is that the woman is all on her own in the dark waters she has now made herself so vulnerable. The camera moves closer fro underneath to the female as she swims peacefully along the surface, she turns to look at the shore and then she jerks upwards slightly at the same time making a horrible grunting sound. The shark begins its attacks, she is thrown around the surface of the water a number of times screaming and throwing her arms into the air in panic. The camera still stays sea level so the audience is still unaware of what is attacking her. The audience can now think to themselves about what the creature is, leave it to their imagination. At one point in the vicious attack the female grabs hold of a floating buoy. The screaming stops and all you hear is her panting. This makes the audience believe that the attack is over, but she is dragged across the surface screaming as she goes. She stops jerking around then is dragged under the surface. Before she goes under she looks as if she has given up, knowing that she is done for. Once the water settles there is complete silence, this creating an effect of normality once again as if nothing had happened. There are so many different emotions being generated from the audience during this opening sequence, there is a state of tranquillity then the sudden change to a ferocious attack. The audience may be scared but they enjoy it. This is the way in which Spielberg grips the audience, to a point when the audience doesn’t know when the situation is safe or dangerous. The sudden change from peace and normality to then disaster is very quick and I think that along with the other factors that were mentioned, the audience are genuinely scared by the opening extract of the film.

As you can see from the two examples above many techniques have been used to grip and scare the audience, it comes down do the use of music, suspense and the point that the audience know that something is going to happen but the actors in the movie do not. The one thing that gets the audience sitting on the edge of their seats is the way in which the director and scares the audience when they least expect it creating more of a tense atmosphere.