Scream 4

Scream 4:

The film Scream 4 is known as a ‘slasher’ film and is a stereotypical horror movie in which a masked figure named ‘Ghost face’ goes around tormenting, stalking and finally killing high school teenagers for fun. This film links to my group’s storyline as we will have three teenage girls being chased and stabbed to death by a man in a mask who has a van.

As the movie starts it firstly shows the title sequence of the main production company that produced the film, and it then straight away starts with the film, as the ‘Dimension films’ comes onto the screen so does the diegetic sound of a phone ringing.

 It then starts with the girl answering the phone to Ghost face; it uses a close up of this shot as it wants the audience to see the girl’s reaction to what the man is saying to her.

It then uses a shot-reverse shot to the other girl using an over the shoulder shot to show irony as the girl is playing with a prop knife whilst also talking about killers in popular horror films.

An eye line match is then used as the two girls both look at a phone's screen and is a close up shot to see the girl’s reactions.

 When the girls go towards the door it is clear that one of them doesn’t want to open it as it uses a medium shot to show how far away she is standing from the other character and she also has her back to the camera. The shot includes the door as it wants the audience to focus on that, as the tension builds to see what is behind the door.

The next shot that is used is an extreme long shot to show the girl’s house as it establishes the scene and also makes it clear that there is no one outside the house that the girl and the audience can see, this makes the tension unbearable as the audience should know that something is about to happen.

As predicted the two girls are killed as one is stabbed and the other’s throat has been cut, to show her perspective as she is spinning round, the camera seems as if it is on a slope, or is tilting like a canted angle to try and include the audience with how the character is feeling as she bleeds out with the fake blood.

However, it then quickly cuts to a title ‘Stab 6’, this title has been juxtaposed with a knife going through the ‘T’ and also uses the colour red to represent blood, also in the background of it you can hear the diegetic sounds of a scream. This is done to baffle the audience as to what has just happened but then makes it clear as we realise that the last scene wasn’t real but instead a movie that others were watching.

As it then changes to an establishing medium close up shot of two different girls that are both looking at the TV, this makes it look like they are in fact looking directly into the camera, this is an eye line match, and it also uses a faded background so that the audience focuses on the two characters. This makes the audience wonder if this is in fact the real start of the film, and to confuse them further.

As it continues, there is a long shot of the surroundings and shows the back of one of the girls sat on the sofa looking like she is reaching for something, this creates suspense as the audience suspects that something is going to happen next.

As the girl comes back onto the sofa they discuss horror movies and just as suspected something does happen. The other girl pulls out a knife and next shows a close up of the knife that has just been plunged into her stomach, this is to shock the audience as they weren’t expecting that to happen and it is also made to look real with the blood and the knife lodged into her stomach.

Although, the next shot is of another title sequence, this time it is for ‘Stab 7’ it uses the diegetic scream in the background again and the same style as it is from the same series of films, the audience is again made to be confused and is again asking themselves if this time it will in fact be the real movie.

The next shot is of another two different girls that have just been watching the film, when the eldest sister hears a noise, as she is going up the stairs it shows her from a low angle shot as she has the power rather than her little sister.

The next shot is of a phone; this implies that something bad has happened to the other girl, then as the phone rings it makes the audience jump and the close up of her face is to see her reaction.

An over the shoulder shot has been used so you can see the dead girl’s body and to see that she is already dead as this helps to create an eerie atmosphere as it is obvious that something is going to happen to the other girl.

As the girl runs for her life screaming, a long shot is used so that the audience can see that she is being chased through the house by ghost face.

Finally high/low angle shots of the girl and ghost face is to show the power change as she is left crawling on the floor, he is walking towards her, about to kill her as she is weak.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It finally ends with her being killed and cuts to the proper title sequence of ‘SCRE4M’, as the establishing scenes are over. The title has been juxtaposed with ghost face’s mask in the background and the title on top, this also represents that time will have passed as when it comes back on it is a new day.