Horror opening sequence - It Follows

 

Analysing the opening sequence to It Follows

It Follows is a Thriller film directed by David Robert Mitchell that released on February 27th 2015 and was produced by Northern Lights Films, the cast features Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi and Lili Seppe.

IT FOLLOWS

NARRATIVE

This sequence opens on an establishing shot of a calm suburban neighbourhood, it pans to the right to a house, whose door is suddenly opened when a young woman sprints out of it in deep fear as she repeatedly looks over her shoulder. The camera remains focused on her, not revealing what she is looking back at, she runs to the middle of the street and stares in pure horror at something unknown behind the camera. Both her father off screen and her neighbour in the background ask her what is going on and if she needs help, she shakily tells them that she is ok as he keeps her full attention on the mysterious entity out of sight. She backs away for a seconds before running to the right again, making a full circle to go back into her house and past her concerned dad, she quickly comes out again to run into her car and drive away. We are then shown her sitting alone in the middle of a beach in the dark, crying, she is calling her dad apologising and telling him she loves him. This is then cut to a jarring shot of her lying dead on the sand with her leg brutally bent backwards. From this, we can guess that the rest of the movie will reveal what mysterious threat she was looking at and running away from, and why her father and neighbour couldn’t see it.

TARGET AUDIENCE

This film mainly targets teenage/young adult audiences; the graphic shot at the end of her dead body rules out any younger audiences, and the fact that the character we are following appears to be a woman in her late teens/early 20s suggests that maybe the characters in the rest of the film will be of similar age, this tends to appeal more to audiences of that same age group as it is perhaps easier to relate to.

GENRE & TONE

This film’s genre is clearly horror, obviously the shot of the woman’s gruesome death makes this clear, but her intensely frightened and odd behaviour paired with the lack of knowledge of what she is running from add to this. The fact that it follows a young woman is also a somewhat typical aspect of a horror. The general tone seems to be very mysterious as we are revealed so little about the threat, it is also highly unsettling simply due to its bizarre nature that leaves so many questions unanswered.

CHARACTERS

The entire sequence mainly follows one character, the young woman. Her costume is made up of what seems to be white pyjamas along with black high heels, this odd combination already creates a sense of confusion over what is happening to her. She acts very strangely; sprinting out of her house and slowly backing down the street before running again full circle back inside; she seems to already know what to do, which suggests she understands the mysterious threat’s behaviours - perhaps she has dealt with this for a while already. She is shown to be an emotional person (although anyone would be in this situation) when she calls her dad and apologises for not being nice to him sometimes, this makes the audience sympathise with her and know her more as a person, only to cut to her dead on the floor.

TECHNIQUES

The camera remains focused on her throughout almost the entire sequence, it tracks along with her in the middle of the shot, only allowing the audience to see that she is terrified for her life, without showing the real danger behind the camera. This creates fear over an entity we can’t see or don’t know anything about, similarly to the two brief background characters who can’t seem to see the threat either. The last moments of this opening show her having a tearful conversation with her father, which then cuts to what she is looking at in front of her by matching her eye-line; we are simply met with a long shot of where she supposedly ran in from, showing no form of threat and yet again depriving us from any knowledge. Her diegetic phone call is then cut off with a jarring shot of her lifeless body in the harsh morning light, with her leg bent in a gruesome manner, covered in blood. This sudden contrast in imagery only leaves the audience with more questions and establishes its gory nature.

SUCCESSFUL?

I think this is a great opening sequence due to the almost frustrating lack of knowledge of what to fear, it makes use of the fear of the unknown as the audience are left wondering what she could possibly be running from. Additionally, the gory death at the end is similarly effective in engaging horror fans that enjoy gore as it confirms that it is not afraid to show graphic imagery - suggesting the rest of the film will feature similarly brutal and unusual deaths.