The start of this film was extremely slow. The opening sequence was around 11 minutes long and it was set in Iraq It started off by showing of a boy running through an archaeological dig site to report that 'something' had been found. When (who I assume was the leader of the dig) went to investigate he found that amongst the small items found was a strange head of a small statue. It then cuts to him sitting at a table at a cafe, he takes a small pill with a drink, he shakes as he does so until he swallows the pill.
If I was watching the film without knowing what it is I would not have known it belongs to the horror genre. Nothing particularly conventional of the genre has happened and definitely nothing scary has happened. At this point in the film it looks like it could be an Indiana Jones type movie where the protagonists have to go searching for artifacts.
The man next walks past three men working in a forge hammering a sheet of red hot metal. A forger with one eye turns to the man and wipes his brow of sweat. The man looks startled to see this and then the shot cuts to the next; A close up of a grandfather clock. The location is now in an office of the mans son who is cataloguing peices of statues. He speaks softly to himself "evil against evil" as he looks at a strange coin and the statue head . The grandfather clock then stops ticking, his son stands up and we learn that the man has to go somewhere. Where? we do not know. He embraces his son and leaves on foot.
I still wouldn't have guessed this is a horror film, it still feels like an adventure film to me due to the locations and props. My own horror opening is incredibly different to this. My locations (dark woodland) and props (bloody knife) are more conventional.
As he walks through the town the camera movement goes unsteady and the man is nearly knocked down by a horse and carriage. He finally arrives at some ruins at which he is drawn to a particular statue. Here the sound intensifies, there are dogs snarling and fighting nearby, the wind gets louder and louder and sounds like screaming. There is an underlying note that also gets louder and louder at this point. I really liked this use of sound and how it intensified the feeling that something bad is about to happen. The the shot cuts to a bloodred sunset and fades to the next location. The location of where the story will take place.
To be honest I found the lack of convention in these first ten minutes extremely frustrating. There was no evil antagonist, helpless victim, dark low key lighting or anything I was expecting. Neither the Mise-en-scene was frighting or the tone. However, later in the film this changed and it was truly horrific. It wasn't scary though, it was just really strange and unpleasant. Not even laughably unpleasant. I didn't even get to the end of the film and I don't plan to.
I want my opening sequence to be very different from this film. I am going for more of a typical slasher movie whereas I feel this story is a bit more serious. I want my horror film to be scary, enjoyable to watch and not too heavy. I feel The Exorcist is very different from what I am trying to achieve but I am still glad I watched it
No comments:
Post a Comment