scene is of a dark cobbled alley also a very typical horror setting. The opening to
Rosemary’s baby is very different, the text for the credits is all in a very girlie pink
and the setting is New York city on a hot day, this seems very strange for a horror
film. But the clue that it is a horror film is the music, it is contrapuntal to what you
would expect as it sounds like , its of a young girl singing but it is slightly off key and
sounds a bit disturbing.
The lighting can establish the genre of a film through brightness, shadow, colour of
lighting and angle of lighting. In ‘’Frankenstein must be destroyed’’ the lighting is
very dim and comes mainly from street lamps. Most of the lighting in the street is
red this is huge clue to the fact that this is a horror film. Later in the laboratory the
lighting is mainly green and blue and seems to be coming from the bottles and
chemicals. In ‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ the light is very bright and seems to be sunlight.
Just about all the lighting in this clip seems to be white sunlight.
Sound is one of the main clues to the genre of a film. The clues through sound are
whether or not there is music, what type of music is it, how loud is the music, sound
effects and people’s voices. The music at the start of ‘’Frankenstein must be
destroyed’’; is low, strong and typical horror music. It then changes to a strange
unnerving zither music. In this clip, music is also used for climactic events. Sound
effects are also used in this clip, the sound of footsteps on cobbles are used for
tension. The noise of water is used very well to simulate the getting rid of the body.
In ‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ there is the music at the start of the film in the credits this is
a little girl singing but as it is slightly off key it sounds slightly scary and disturbing.
Apart from this there is not allot of music in this clip. There are very few noticeable
sound effects either.
Use of colour is important as well especially in horror films as there are cirtain
colours that are only really used in horror films like the colour black and dark red. In
Frankenstein the colours used are generally black and red as what you would
expect. In ‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ they hardly use these colours but instead use mainly
white and very light yellow.
Mise en scene is also very important as it means everything that is in shot e.g.
props, costumes, set and everything else. In ‘’Frankenstein must be destroyed’’ you
can tell from the costumes and setting that it is a city around the Victorian time. It is
also set at night down a diserted street, this is a very typical horror film setting.
‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ is once again done differently and is set in about the 1960s in
New York in the daytime and the two main characters are walking down a crowded
road. There are some hints to it being a horror though as the people who work in
the appartment all seem to act a bit strangely. There is also the mysterious
cupboard with the door behind it in the apartment.
The Editing in a film is not as much of a big clue to the genre as some of the other
film language. But can help to build tension or in action scenes. In ‘’Frankenstein
must be destroyed’’ the edits are mainly medium length, but speed up when trying
to build tension and in the bit with the struggle in it. Most of the cuts in the clip are
just straight cuts. ‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ doesn’t have very interesting editing either. In
is just slow cut the whole way through with the camera tracking around the
apartment after the couple.
Another important clue to the genre of the film is the use of the camera. There are
cirtain shots that are often used in horror films such as one that shows the killers
view usually watching there victim. In ‘’Frankenstien must be destroyed’’ they use
this shot, it is used when Frankenstien is about to kill the posh man who has just
got out the carriage. The camera work in ‘Rosemary’s baby’’ is not very interesting
apart from the establishing shot of the city, where there’s a very high crane shot
and it pans around the skyline. The rest of the shots are mainly just tracking the
couple around the apartment.
Overall I think that it is very obvious that ‘’Frankenstein must be destroyed’’ is very
easy to tell that it is a horror film as it used all the stereotypical elements, whereas
‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ there are the clues that its a horror film are still there but they
are more subtle. Though I think that ‘’Frankenstein must be destroyed’’ is quite a
good classic horror it is not very original and all the elements of the film allot have
benn done before whereas ‘’Rosemary’s baby’’ seems more modern and original so
you are less likely to think it will be scary and therefore end up being even more
scared.
