The next two shots are a birds eye medium shot over the bed and a close up of Ana. I feel that these two shots are used to portray Ana’s innocence in the matter as she hasn’t noticed what is going on and is only just waking up. The bird’s eye view shows Ana just waking up and Lewis running out of the shot towards his blood-spattered daughter. The close up shows her looking very tired and clueless to what is going on. We then see Lewis holding his daughter and we cut to a close up of her eyes staring straight at Lewis’ neck which is the only part of him in the shot right now. This and the girls hungry looking gaze make Lewis seem very vulnerable. As we are lead to expect, she bites his neck and we straight away were back to a close up of Ana who now see’s what’s happening and she has a terrified facial expression. We have a few close ups between the girl and Lewis who is screaming in agony. The shot changes to a medium shot showing Ana pulling her daughter off of her husband. Her teeth are dug deep into Lewis’ neck so when she is pulled away some of the skin is stuck to her teeth therefore it stretches across the shot and snaps back onto his neck spraying blood everywhere. This use of makeup and special effects lets the audience know that this girl is dangerous and she can cause a lot of pain and damage. As a member of the audience this made me feel scared for Ana, I want to see how the events unfold and whether she will escape or not.
Then a long shot from outside the bedroom shows Ana throw the girl down the hallway. This shot makes us realise that this girl is also very vulnerable herself as she is thrown so far. It’s the fact that a little girl wearing a cute night robe is trying to eat her parents. This is what makes the sequence so terrifying because in horror films it’s more often than not the little girl who is the innocent person in the matter. Obviously with that is not the case in this as she has an evil look about her.
We see Lewis fall onto the bed and knock over a bedside lamp with his flailing arms. This gives off a sense of panic, if he just fell onto the bed without knocking the lamp over you would think that he is dead but because of him knocking the lamp we know that he is struggling to stay alive instead of just dying. We then cut to a close up of the girl growling towards Ana. We see in this shot that her eyes are big and dark, her nostrils are flared up and her mouth is completely covered in blood. This makeup makes her seem the very opposite of what a little girls face should look like. I think that this shot is purely to scare the audience and to let them know what Ana is dealing with. Also the camera is using a low angled shot giving the little girl a very powerful image. After this shot we zoom in on Ana who is breathing heavily and looks very scared. We then see the girl jump to her feet and run down the hallway towards the bedroom. This made me feel scared because the girl is running straight towards the camera whilst growling with blood in her mouth. The mise en scene in the hallway is used to make this situation seem as realistic as possible. Furniture and paintings are used to make it seem like an ordinary home which the audience can relate to making these few shots even scarier.
Ana manages to slam the door just in time and then an extreme close up of her hand twisting the lock gives off the impression that she is safe for now. There is now a series of close ups of Ana struggling to keep Lewis alive and also the door shaking violently. This lets us know that Ana is under a lot of pressure at the moment because she is trying to save someone whilst there is also someone trying to break in and kill them both. There is blood all over the bed and all of their clothes. There is a lot of blood in this sequence and cleverly the director has got all three actors to wear white tops. This makes the appearance of blood much more dramatic as it shows up a lot more clearly on lighter clothes and it is much easier to notice just how much Lewis is bleeding simply because of his white shirt being soaked to blood red.
Ana runs to the phone and there is a close up of her fingers dialling 911. She gets a recorded message saying that the phone lines are busy. We are shown an extreme close up of her fingers bashing the disconnect button and redialling the number. This lets us know that she is now panicking about the situation she is in, and we are quickly reminded about the threat of the girl breaking in with a close up of the door handle shaking. This use of shots really gets the audience involved and we start to feel quite uncomfortable because of the sense of realism given off by the life like mise en scene in the bedroom. As Ana is talking on the phone we see Lewis in the background, Ana notices and calls to him. He darts his head round and we see that there is obviously something wrong with him, his eyes are wide open and drool is dangling from his mouth. We are looking over Ana’s shoulder which makes it seem as though he is glaring straight at us. This gives the audience a big fright as he runs towards Ana. She holds him off and escapes from his grasp. We see her look down and we cut to a close up of the car keys. This makes them seem very important to the situation because if she manages to get them then she will have some form of transport to escape in. She grabs them just before Lewis does and dashes to the bathroom. She slams the door behind her and falls into the bath. We cut to a bird’s eye angle over the bathroom. The detail of mise en scene used in the bathroom is terrific. Every little thing you would expect to be in a bathroom is there: toothbrushes, towels, shampoos at the corner of the bath. It’s all there. This adds to the already great sense of realism and really gives the audience something to relate to.
We cut to a close up of Ana in the bath swiping away the shower curtain which she dragged down when she fell into the bath. This could be related to the very well known shower film in Psycho. This once again makes Ana seem as though she is panicking because she is damaging her home and doesn’t care, she just wants to escape. In this close up there is a bright light shining on her face and she realises the window above her. The light coming from the window makes me instantly think of safety. If she can get out of the window then she will be safe. Ana just about manages to escape out of the window before Lewis can get to her. But when she gets outside there is carnage everywhere. Explosions are going off in the background, people are running along the streets shooting and cars are crashing into buildings. This obviously gives us the impression that it isn’t only Ana who is having problems at the moment. She manages to run to her car and drive down the road. We see an ambulance run over a man and a police car spin out of control. Seeing things like that happen to the people you would be relying on to save you would get the audience quite scared and it really gives us the impression that everything is out of control.
Ana manages to drive out of the neighbourhood and the opening credits roll. The types of shots used in this scene really show Ana’s confusion to the whole situation. There are many close ups which are often used to emphasize the characters emotion whether its anger, confusion or sheer terror. I feel that mise en scene is used in a very intelligent way in this sequence. This film wouldn’t be scary if it didn’t seem real but the detail which has been put into the bedroom and bathroom really makes it seem like any other home. This is what I think makes the opening sequence so terrifying.
