On the other hand Murnau’s Nosferatu is a silent film therefore there is an even greater use of image a lot of which comes through the language used, as well as over exaggerated facial expressions which stretch to the limits to get the desired effect.
The opening mise en scene of the Mansion in The Others establishes a sense of horror because they take a long shot of it with lots of mist circling around it and apart from some trees the only other thing visible is the mysterious reflection of the mansion in the lake. The camera pans round from quite high and at a distance which suggests it’s a crane shot. There also isn’t much lighting in the scene to help the audience believe that it isn’t an ordinary mansion and that something sinister will take place, in addition to that the setting creates an effect of solitude and that they are cut off from the rest of the world.
Grace is first presented to us in an extreme close-up, canted angle reaction shot of her screaming which immediately makes viewers jump because there is an immense change from that long shot of the mansion to this up-close and personal shot of a worried grace, this unnerves the audience.
Grace is presented to us as a potential victim because she is shown alone in an enormous mansion looking after two children; all of them set away from society leaving her to do everything for her offspring, even educate them, and if that’s not enough we then find out that her husband has left for the war leaving us more sympathetic believing that he is most likely to be dead. Grace also behaves rather irrational with the curtains and seems very tense or uneasy.
Amenabar presents the servants as deprived, meagre but unselfish and not very well cared for, kind people.
This can make them seem like victims because they’re so pleasant and polite. We are then informed that Lydia is a mute which makes us feel even sorrier for them and as if they’re going to be taken advantage of. However if you look at Lydia differently you may see her immoral side thinking that she is hiding something, maybe a deep dark secret.
At first Thomas Hutter is presented as compassionate and charming to his darling girlfriend when he picks her some flowers and takes them to her, we also see extreme close-ups of his dazzling smile. He might be a potential victim because people could be jealous since he has the almost perfect life, as well as love. Or you could see it as the fact that the hero or kind-hearted person always becomes a victim at one point in the horror genre.
Hutter’s relationship with knock, the malicious looking businessman, is a strange one because it seems like they are best friends when there’s shots of them together smiling although there are other shots when Hutter looks surprised and we then have an eye-line shot of Hutter staring at knock curiously.
The two films ; The others and Nosferatu are both very appealing which looks to be a trademark of the horror genre, because they have set scary storylines; they build up suspense and trauma and then shock you with a stunning climax.
