Supernatural Horror Openings - The Strangers (Characters & Situations) // Research

Characters

No key characters are shown in this clip. However, at 1:40 we hear the voice of a woman who is in trouble and corresponding shots are shown to what she is saying and describing. As the woman is in trouble you would assume she is one of the key characters and is probably the protagonist as it is likely some unknown being (the antagonist) is harassing her during the phone call. From the woman's voice we can see how she is a woman who is likely to be in her late 20s/early 30s.

Stock characters shown through a smashed windscreen

There are not that many stock characters evident in this opening. The only ones are the two boys that are shown from 1:41 to 2:00. They are introduced when in the foreground we see a smashed front windscreen, the camera pans to the left to reveal the boys in the background through the hole in the smashed windscreen. These boys are staring at the car and both have bicycles. This suggests they are typical stock characters as they seem to be just normal school boys who were probably cycling home and then came across the smashed windscreen. As usual stock characters tend to get involved in the action to make the situation more interesting and the audience worry about them as they could be putting themselves in danger. These boys are curious and we see them walk slowly through the front door of the house. This is shown with a long shot and the camera is slightly moving up and down giving the impression that someone or something is watching them. As I said before this enforces the idea that the audience may feel as though the stock characters are in danger and may feel scared for them. This is a good technique to use, especially having young school boys as it means the audience with either sons or younger brothers subconsciously think of the stock characters as the son or brother they know making them feel even more for the character.

Situations

The opening of this movie is a pretty typical stock situation. It leaves the audience wanting more and wanting to know what has happened and why this woman (the protagonist) is in this situation. As well as this the audience can infer from the shots nearer to the end of the clip how the film is likely to be a happy situation that has gone wrong (a typical stock situation). I can see this as at 2:04 there is a slightly high angle, long shot of an engagement ring box with a couple of petals scattered around it. This implies that there was a couple involved who were having a romantic night and the woman was proposed to. However the next shot a 2:08 shows another long shot but of a bloody knife, with one rose petal in the background. The fact that the amount of rose petals in the composition of the shot has gone down to one (compared to around 7 in the shot before) mirrors how the romance reduced/disappeared when the situation happened. As well as this the shaky movement of the camera on these shots could emphasise how shaken up this woman is about the situation. In addition to this typically at the end of a horror stock situation the final girl (in this case woman) survives, and this opening appears to follow this typical narrative.


One rose petal by a bloody knife



Rose petals surrounding an engagement ring box