Then the couple go upstairs and enter their bedroom and again these two people are extremely happy and are stripping when the wife hears the faint beeping of the telephone. She looks down towards the floor and here there is a point of view shot from the lady who also notices there is broken glass from the window on the floor. Then there is a close up of Malcolm’s face and he goes over to see what the matter is and here there is an up build of music as a shadow rushes over the screen. Here the music intensifies as the camera shows Malcolm walking over to the bathroom and the anxiety on his face and then there is a close up of the wife. These few shots show a drastic change in the two characters attitudes, from being happy and not a care in the world, to being scared and nervous at what is about to occur. This makes the scene much more dramatic. The music becomes tense as the camera enters the bathroom to show a half naked disturbed man, there is an air of comedy at this point because there is an anti-climax of music which makes the viewer think that there would be like a “ghost” or something. But, no it’s just a disturbed young man! He keeps rubbing his arm and then he begins to start talking and screaming at Malcolm. There is a close up of Malcolm as he tries to work who actually is stood in front of him, he edges back onto the bed and falls backwards. Then there is no suspense or tension here which makes this point different from other films, instead the disturbed young man just turns around, grabs a gun and then shoots Malcolm. Then he shoots himself in the head, except as the viewer you do not actually see this happen, you just hear the gun shot and then the blood splatter against the walls and the floor as the camera turns to face the wall. Then there is a bird’s eye view shot over the bed on which Malcolm and his wife are lay, this then fades into a black screen which holds for a few seconds. This is a very long black out in film making and in this sense is used to illustrate Malcolm’s death which all becomes apparent towards the end of the film. But this black out adds a dramatic and mysterious end to the end of this scene.
The beginning of the Others is quite obscure because it begins with a very loud high pitched horrific scream and the camera is lay horizontally next to Nicole Kidman in bed, then as she sits up, so too does the camera. This leads to a question; why was she screaming? Was it a nightmare or did something happen? So this is a slight moment of suspense. It later becomes apparent that she murdered her two children and then herself so this scream could have been because it was a nightmare and that she doesn’t want to believe that she has murdered them. Then there is a long shot, showing three figures walking up to the house dressed in what appears to be rather old looking attire. They are there about the housekeeping jobs and they enter the house and the lady of the household seems to have an obsession with locking each and every door, which before you know why seems to be completely peculiar the house s very large but because of the mothers sensitivity to noise and the ease of getting a migraine, there are no telephones, radios or forms of communication with the outside world and there is also no electricity in the house. The mother appears, not only obscure but very moody and quite nasty almost because she orders the mute to close all of the curtains (which again seems pretty odd and then there is a lot of suspense up to meeting the children and you expect them to be mutates or something. There is a long shot through the main hall and then candlelit passages as they walk to the children, who are awoken by the mother, who proceed to pray in a perfectly innocent way. But in the background there is sinister music so these prayers sound more like a chant which is quite “scary”. Then you see the children who are perfectly normal looking except they are half asleep but they are photosensitive to bright lights making their mother’s obsession more apparent, and this relieves the moment of suspense. The children are sat at the table eating their breakfast when the little girl begins to talk of others and how they used to make breakfast better and that everything was better before until “mummy” went mad! With this the little boy becomes all protective over “mummy” and with this you can realise that something has been said which shouldn’t have been. The mother then appears from the dark shadows and looks rather ominous way and then the music changes to what she says and this is played by a n oboe and then again there is a black out.
Both films end there beginning scene with a black out, this is because it is a very effective way of both producing suspense and a quite mysterious ending.
Now, I will compare a moment of suspense in each film and look at which is most effective.
The Sixth Sense is set in modern times and the moment of suspense which I looked at starts off with a black screen and then takes almost still photographs of the house. The first one being of the outside of the house, then of different rooms in the house, this shows the viewer that it was completely empty with no one in it. You then see the little boy who is in his red tent which I situated in his bedroom his tent makes Cole feel warm and comfortable and makes him feel safe- because he had a gift, the 6th sense meaning he could see the dead.) He is desperate for the toilet in the middle of the night but he is too scared to go, as he fears what else may be lurking in the house. But he is too desperate so in the end gets up and waddles to the toilet and there is a long shot of the boy on the toile. The next shot is an extreme close up of the houses temperature gage in the house which is rapidly declining (this means that there is a ghost present or near by- in this film anyway!) the boy begins to shiver and he
becomes very scared and nervous so he starts to hurry up and rush. The zoom of the camera falls back and there is an up build of music as a shadow/ figure swiftly sweeps across the screen. Cole turns around and the n the camera shows it from his prospective along the corridor to the kitchen, which is where the figure went to. The music is again tense and it crescendo’s as Cole enters he kitchen, where he sees a lady stood in the corner of the kitchen dressed in her night wear. Cole says “mama” thinking it’s his mother and then the women turns around and holds out her wrists showing Cole her wrists which are slit. Cole is terrified by this and begins to shake and decided to run away from her into his safety tent. He turns around in his tent and the camera zooms in on a religious figurine and then you see the outside of the tent, which is lit by torch light.
The Others; it starts off with the mother talking to the maid whilst she is sat in a n armchair sewing. The mother then says can you please tell Lydia to be quieter when she is cleaning as there really is no need in all of the racket which she makes when she does a little bit of house work. The maid then eaves the room and the mother returns to her needle work when the banging happens again and the ceiling begins to shudder and the camera angle rises to look down on the mother. Then you see Nicole Kidman looking shocked and there is a complete look of worry on her face, the music in the background crescendo’s to bring about an air of tension and you begin to wonder what on earth she has seen out of the window. There is a long shot of through the window, to show the maid stood outside in the grounds talking to Lydia, which was who the mother thought was casing all of the noise. The camera speedily pans over and across up to the ceiling, the banging restarted and the chandelier began to shake vigorously. This adds a very tense and suspense moment because no one now knows who is causing all of the banging and the viewer begins to question what is happening? The quick pan across from the window shows that it is not Lydia and then you begin to feel is it an intruder, or what?! The mother runs out of the room and onto the stairs where she sees her daughter Anne stood reading the bible. She starts to shout at her asking her who else is in the house and where they are, she tells her that the others went into the junk room along the corridor. There is a long shot of the corridor showing a door with white lights surrounding it whilst there is tense music in the background which also sounds partly supernatural. Then there is a midshot of Nicole Kidman, who is stood at the doors entrance, whilst there is religious angelic music in the background which sounds very sinister. She enters the room and the door closes behind her. The camera shoots from the door.
Inside the junk room there are lots of obscure objects placed in the room covered in white dust sheets, which could look like ghosts? The room is silent with no sound at all except that of her footsteps. There is a mid-shot of the mother stood in front of a sheet and she looks very pale almost like a “ghost”! Then there are whispers in the background, murmurs and slight noises and she is no longer alone in the junk room- she becomes very worried and nervous and frantically moves around pulling the sheets off the objects. As she steps back she feels a hand on her back and turns to see a large religious figurine. Then the mother turns to look into the mirror and she can see no one but herself- could it all be in her head?! The door begins to close and she runs out of the room and towards her daughter who says something rather comical to her mother- this arms the question is the daughter just playing games with her mother?!
I think that the two films have a very similar twist in there plots yet the directors managed to approach this idea in completely different ways to produce very different films and the directors still use similar ideas, such as the use of black outs here and there to dramatically end scenes. I personally prefer the beginning and the moment of suspense in the film the Sixth Sense because it is set in modern days in a normal house with normal people, so I feel I can relate to the story more and actually picture myself in that situation. But the others is set in a typical “horror” story situation- isolation and so because of this I find it less effective, because I don’ t live in a huge country estate with no electricity or communication devises so I find it much harder to relate to, and so less effective. The others uses physcology on it behalf to try and use the fact that it’s an isolated mansion to try and add to the scariness of it.
The Sixth Sense seems to have a much more quickly moving story plot which I prefer and there are no questions left over at the end of the film as they all get answered during the film. I feel that the sixth sense is less predictable and a much better thriller film and the others is far too predictable for my liking. The sixth sense uses colour to its own advantage because the director decided to use red as a colour to show emotion-the red tent shows strong emotion and there are many other major red objects used in the film, also the music is more modern and so I feel works better with this particular film.
