What Inspired Me

      For our project, my group and I have chosen to do a horror film opening. What had drawn me to the horror genre was the mysterious touch it gives to a movie as a whole. Horror movies are unpredictable but predictable in the sense that an audience knows something is bound to take an unlikely turn. Instead of being bright like other movies, horror movies are generally dark and use sound effects to its most useful advantage.

      In the movie “Bird Box”, lowkey lighting  is added to create a moody effect. Horror movies tend to start off in what seems to be a normal and unthreatening situation. It later on spirals into a nerve racking thriller. Despite starting off the film normally, lowkey lighting is still used to translate that something is bound to go wrong. In the opening of Bird Box, a woman (main character) is seen sternly giving two children orders to stay quiet and obedient throughout the journey they are soon to embark. The woman then leads the two kids out with her down to the river as they are all blindfolded. Adding the blindfold element to the film creates suspense because there are moments where the audience is seeing through the blindfold as well making us vulnerable and incapable of knowing what is going on just like the characters. The scene then switches to a normal day six years earlier where the woman is painting calmly and her sister comes to visit. Upon arriving, the woman’s sister lets her know there are mass suicides occurring in Europe. The woman brushes it off since it is occurring in Europe and not North America. Her sister then takes her to get an ultrasound at the hospital. After the ultrasound a woman who was seen talking normally on the phone before the appointment all of sudden began hitting her head against the glass window. Clearly there was something wrong with the woman as she had been trying to kill herself. The movie then spirals into chaos as people are going wild in the streets and running away from everyday people attempting to harm themselves. At this point, the woman’s very normal sister goes crazy and crashes the vehicle. The sister then proceeds to crawl out of the car and walk in front of a truck where she is then ran over. The way the series of events quickly went downhill drew me to watch the rest of the movie. The fact that the woman was pregnant but had a strong personality made me wonder how she would be able to get through a world gone mad and if she were to make it at all. 

      The movie “Silence” starts out with two  excited women 1,000 feet underground. They’ve reached some type of checkpoint and call for the people on the surface through their walkie talkie. They’re having a conversation with people above ground when all of a sudden deadly bats fly in and the frame becomes bloody and hard to see. The women panic and the audience assumes they have been killed by the hoard of bats. The scene then shifts to a deaf girl walking out of her school campus. A group of boys behind her mock her deafness clearly aware that she has no idea they’re behind her. She then turns around and is saddened by their mockery. However, she seems to be used to this type of treatment and shows no reaction to them. A high pitched noise pops up repeatedly through the first 10 minutes of the film. Later on the girl (Abby) is shown at home having a dinner with her family. Sound effects and mysteriousness seem to creep into the scene. Abby then narrates that everyone has a story about what they were doing “when it happened” and proceeds to tell her unfortunate story in a gloomy setting. What drew me to watch the rest of the movie was the title being Silence and Abby being deaf. People were mocking her when her deafness could be what possibly keeps her alive and the rest dead. The high pitched noise caused curiosity of all sorts and the story Abby proceeds to tell gives the audience a reason to stay tuned.