The Strangers is a film set in an isolated vacation home in America, a young couple receives a knock on the door in the middle of the night from a strange person. From then on three strangers physically and mentally torment them throughout the night. This film has quite a simple opening as most of it is a voice over telling the viewer this film was inspired by true events, this immediately frightens the audience more. It also has a scan of a neighbourhood leading up to this isolated house, this sets the scene straight away and shows the audience that this house is all by itself.
This kind of film would be quite good for our final project as we already have the perfect setting for it. Also there is no huge special effects or costumes making it relatively low budget - suiting us. Also as this film is based around a small amount of characters it makes it easier to find people to be in our final project as we wouldn't need as many people.
This film has a few cliches, one being the house in the middle of nowhere. Although, the main cliche throughout is the 'did you just see that?' moment as the entire film is based around them. These cliches make the film more popular as it is what horror fans expect of a film.
Analysis of opening 2 minutes
The film starts with black screen titles with orange writing, in these titles the story is set up. 'What you are about to see is inspired by true events.' This makes the film scarier to the audience and more on edge as it makes it more realistic. 'On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt left a friend's wedding reception and returned to the Hoyt family's summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known.' This straight away sets the storyline and puts the audience straight into the film and wanting to know whats going to happen next. Also has the voice over has a dark and low voice it adds a scary tone to the text.
There is then a slow motion tracking shot of an American neighbour, however the shot keeps fading to black and then back to the neighbourhood again. This gives an eery effect to the shots as it makes it seems sinister, as it is silent it makes the audience on edge but wonder what is going on. The screen then goes black and we hear a women's voice saying '911 what's your emergency?' This immediately makes the audience interested as to whats happened. The shot then changes and we see two young boys standing behind a car with a hole in the windscreen. We then see a long shot of the two boys walking up the stairs to the cottage, this builds suspense amongst the audience. We then see a close up of an old record player, with the record still spinning round, the shot then switches to another close up of a velvet ring box on the floor surrounded by rose petals. The audience then sees another close up of a knife on the floor with blood on it, blood splattered up the walls and a shotgun on the counter. All of these shots raise questions amongst the audience as to what is going on and what has happened, this makes them want to continue watching. In the background of these shots we hear the 911 call between the operator and the young boy who discovered the house called Jordan. He is crying hysterically and says about how much blood there is, how he's found people and how he doesn't know where he is. This whole phone call has a echoey, crackly tone to it, this makes the audience scared and feel sorry for the little boy and his friend who have discovered this place.
This is a good opening for a horror film as it sets a sinister tone to the film and as it starts with the ending at the beginning it makes the audience want to watch on to find out what happened. This film opening is based on getting the audience involved and making them intrigued by leaving lots of unanswered questions.
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