Analysing and understanding film openings similar to media product.

Film opening analysis: SAW 1

From the very beginning- even before the film has started, I can tell that this film is a horror- I know this from the way the credits are being revealed. Titles such as ‘twisted pictures’ being choked by barbed wire for instance, are a dead giveaway to the genre.
The music is made to make you feel on-edge and is very jumpy through crescendo’s which the directors have chosen to use in order to set the scene for the audience and make them feel anxious and nervous.
The film is located in an irrational setting, which immediately distinguishes the film from other genres, such as westerns or romance where there tends to be a definite mood or choice of place which exist in believable worlds.
The audience are made to carry on watching because they want to see how each character dies. This is conventional of a horror as the audience are encouraged to empathise with the ‘monster’ and enjoy the deaths of the innocent victims.
The first clear image we see is a man in a bathtub gasping for breath. Anything the audience can see is murky or unclear which creates a sense of the unknown. We then see a key, which vanishes down the plughole. This that suggests that any means to escape have now vanished.
The audience are then left in darkness. This puts them in the shoes of the victim who is pleading for help and asking ‘is anybody there?’ again reinforcing the director’s idea of the unknown. The character is then met by a voice that is sinister and ominous; this goes with the isolated setting which provokes the audience into an emotional response rather than a moral one, another traditionalist aspect of the horror genre.
When the lights come on, we can see the room that the characters are in is a derelict bathroom of some sort. The iconic features such as the rust on certain objects and how grimy everything appears to be illustrates that what is going to unfold is going to be unpleasant- Somebody who is clearly deranged has set this up and ‘wants to play a game’ –the famous quote from the saw saga.To conclude I think that Saw portrays the horror genre very well because of all the techniques it uses- The sinister setting, the element of fear that is creates and the iconic features and background music is what makes this a good cocktail for a horror film.