How did you attract the audience?
There we're a lot of things that we're used in the opening. Things such as a 'Jump Scare', the 'Soundtrack', and just overall the generic conventions of a thriller.
Jump Scare.
A jump scare is a technique often used in horror films and video games, intended to scare the audience by surprising them with an abrupt change in image or event, this usually occurs with a loud, frightening sound.
Within our Jump scare right at the end where you see Stacey in the corner of the dark room, it is timed perfectly with the soundtrack, as the light goes off she moves forward ever so creepy until she is basically standing over the camera looking down and as the light comes back on and with the tension and fear in the soundtrack building up, it just gives it that much more eerier effect, but the only down side is with things like that is sometimes it can be a little to predictable and the audience can already guess what's about to happen, so in some films either they will have the tension build up to a point where the audience knows what's about to happen but then it doesn't and for a split second the audience is like 'Oh OK then perhaps not' and then BAM!! whatever it is that was meant to scare the audience does so and catches them off guard and makes the whole scene much more terrifying.
A great scene which completely catches the audience off guard with jump scare is in the original Friday The 13th, and I tell you something it still catches me out:
The Soundtrack
For obvious reasons the soundtrack has to fit the type of genre but really depending on how the film is put together and in our case with this short opening we had to have something gripping yet curious for the audience to be wanting to watch more. So as the film starts rolling we are greeted with soft playing piano music, the theme is still rather slow paced until straight after the flashback with the two of them walking down the street and the rather curios Alex just standing there opposite the house, the music builds up as the audience starts to get suspicious of why he seems to be following her, this again then changes with the 'Two hours later" and his body being dragged to the scene in complete darkness and by now the soundtrack is all spooky and creepy and fits well with what is happening with the scene going on onscreen.
With the video below it suggests the top 10 scariest supernatural movie moments, now I know it's not based around the soundtrack but when you listen carefully especially with the 6th sense scene just listen carefully and you can hear the soundtrack and just how powerful it is:
