Amityville Horrors 2005 Film Deconstruction

Scene 1.

• I chose this scene due to the fact it's from an old fashioned news clip. This is similar to what we will be doing. However it is different from our idea as they are filming a policeman at the scene whereas we want a reporter based in a studio.
• The sound is of the man's voice however it sounds older and different through the microphone. This is played as a voiceover through other shots which have been jump cut into this scene to create a montage.
• The montage is of photographs taken by police and of a body being removed from the house. It's interesting and clever editing. The speed of the pictures and jump cuts creates panic and gives a sense of the shock and horror people felt when hearing about the killings.
• The crowding around the policemen seems to add to how big this story was, again reinforcing the panic and shock people felt.
• The footage also seems more dated, not as clear as we would expect it due to it being recorded in 1974.

Scene 2.

• I chose this scene as it's the last scary bit in the film and because it's a time where you get to clearly see the evil. Like in our film Amityville had a great location and here they are using it to their advantage with the staircase and the evil child.
• The child is playing on the modern stereotype that children can be scary, a recent occurance. She is holding a teddy bear, a symbol of innocence but it adds to the malice as the audience know it has one eye, as is representing the danger.
• There is minimal lighting in this shot as you would expect but the lighting casts a green/blue tint over the whole scene which is again common in a modern horror.
• This scene is very important as it's in the staircase which first caught the attention of the Lutz family, and it's almost as though the film came full circle with the house. 
• The girls is wearing a night dress, the one she died in and you can also see the prominent head wound of how she died adding to the horror, she's staring directly at the camera, but almost past it through to the Lutz family or the audience.

Scene 3.

• I chose this scene as it is where the evil comes from in this house, the mise en scene is good and it is similar to what we need to do.
• The lighting is limited and constricted to a grey/blue scale. There are a lot of shadows which is to be expected as it is the basement and this creates the haunting atmosphere.

Grave Encounters Scenes

Grave Encounters Scenes - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UL5ny4xlDI

Grave encounters is filmed as if it is a documentary or a TV program. It is filmed with a hand held camera and makes the audience feel more a part of the film.

(0.00) 

This opening scene is shot and edited in the style of a documentary. Opening the film in such a way, makes it more believable to the audience that the scene of events actually happened. Watching something that you believe to be real is always scarier and more feared as we are always taught that ‘movies aren’t real’ as children.

Simple shots of the people involved walking across a location unaware of the camera, being given some ‘alone’ time is often seen in documentaries. If our film is to be in a documentary style, we could use scenes of us walking around the outside of the factory in our trailer. Non diagetic music of scary sound effects plays over a diagetic narrative of the main character describing how he has been effected by ‘past encounters with Ghosts’.

They have also added logos and symbols in the corners of the screen of the TV channel and broadcasting logo. This makes the film look more authentic and more like a documentary. The more genuine the film (documentary) looks the more believable it becomes. The more believable something becomes, the scarier it becomes.

(0.39)

This scene shows one of the ‘ghost hunters’ recording the sound in one of the rooms. One of the men ask  a question and records it. When they play it back, they hope to hear for a reply from a ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’. As they listen, they hear no reply but as the girl listens more carefully, we notice her begin to rise as if something has grabbed hold of it and gently pulled it up. A short, diagetic sound of quiet, low pitched breathing or moaning is heard as the hair moves. This indicated that something made her hair move such as a ghost, spirit etc. and not just say, the wind.

This scene is extremely effective and can create some big scares. As the camera has put all the attention on the recorder we do not expect anything else in the shot to change or anything to happen. When the hair moves we are instantly shocked and scared. Being shot with a hand held camera aswell makes the audience feel more a part of the film and makes them feel as if the ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’ is in the room with them aswell.

This required very little editing and can be done without the use of special effects. By tying thin wire or attaching it using hairspray etc. to the hair, by pulling the wire can make the hair appear as if it is moving by itself. By using something else in the shot like a decoy to distract the audience scares us even more when we see something move so unexpectedly.

(1.07)

This scene shows the crew walking around a dark room with nothing but a torch for light. The night vision effect shows to us that the room is dark and makes the girl standing in the corner easily viewable. As the crew walk closer to the girl, they call her and ask who she is. As she turns around, amazing special effects turn her face into a screaming zombie.

This scene is made effective by the transition between the normal face and the zombie one. This would be hard to recreate in our trailer, especially the change between faces. If we were to capture something similar, we could film in a dark room, (the factory basement) with a hand held camera and using a torch to show we are exploring and the torch could suddenly shine on a face with makeup on very close the camera.