Hand of God

The famous opening of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film, Psycho begins with a birds eye view of the city of Phoenix, Arizona. The camera pans across the city and shows the houses and cars, to create mise-en-scene. The camera begins moving in and focuses on a building, zooming until it reaches a window that leads the viewer into the opening interactions of the protagonists. The blinds are closed, leaving only a small gap in which the viewer looks into. 

This sequence is known as the hand of god, in which the audience plays the role of God, and has the advantage of seeing what happens to the characters. This technique allows for the voyeurism of the viewer, while also creating fear, as the protagonists seem to be randomly chosen. This allows for the moral codes of horror to resonate with the audience.

The Cherry falls (2000) hand of god serves a similar purpose while also creating verisimilitude of a small, guarded and conservative community. The close up on the church spire and the serene water combined with the creepy singing create a sense of unease, making the reader question what is behind the image of a perfect town. 

After some location scouting I began the process of shooting the scene:

Horror Conventions: Opening Kill

In this blog post I look at one of the key stereotypes and conventions in horror: the opening kill. It's something that we want to replicate in our film opening since it helps us anchor the film as a horror in the first minutes of the film. I will be looking directly at the kill part of the film opening and how it was done in different slasher sub-genres.

Scream (1996)

Genre: Slasher, however it satirizes the cliches of the slasher genre

This opening sequence is lengthier than most, coming to be 13 minutes long, however, it has all the necessary elements: a girl home alone being stalked by her killer. Casey Becker, played by an A-list celebrity (Drew Barrymore) is your stereotypical Scream queen. The dynamic between the killer, Ghostface, is unique with their back and forth arguing and Casey striking back. 

This film opening play with the concept of a struggling victim well, with Casey striking Ghostface with the phone which he call her on. We don't see the final kill in the opening and it is masked with an ellipses and a slashing audio bridge which carries over. Something we would want to replicate in our film opening.

The final shot we see is a bloody dagger and a black glove of the killer.

Haloween (1978)

Genre: Slasher

The Halloween opening with it's iconic plot twist, tells the story from the pint of view of the antagonist, the killer. It uses a popular technique in horror, using the POV shot, showing the scene through the killer's eyes. 

Michael uses a kitchen knife to stab the half naked teen girl. We never actually see the stab in graphic detail, just glimpses of the the knife and the girl screaming in agony. Something we would want to replicate in our film. 

Ready or Not (2019)

Ready or Not comes from horror film collective Radio Silence, who would go on to work on Scream (2022) and Scream VI, and is one of the more intriguing horror-comedies of the 2010s. While simultaneously a movie about the dysfunctions of a huge family and about the perils of cults, Ready or Not manages to be a lot more than any of that thematic mumbo jumbo. 

Take its opening scene, for example. You see a groom running around a huge Victorian manor trying to escape someone or something, only to come face to face with a young boy. He pleads to the child to not say anything to those chasing the man before the child pulls out a gun and kills the man. Everything you need to know about the film is set up in that opening kill, even though we don't quite know that yet. It's a fascinating way of starting a film like Ready or Not, considering so much of the film's charm only comes in the second and third acts. Regardless, it has a first kill that makes a huge impression and sets the rest of the film in motion.

The scene is effective with its floating tracking shots of the two children, contrasting this pure childlike naivety with a grusome act. 

Psycho (1960)

Is there a first kill that is more iconic or well-known than that of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho? It's a classic bit of intentional misdirect, as the audience has been led to believe that Janet Leigh is going to be the main protagonist for the entire film, only for her to be murdered off in the first 30 minutes of the film. Psycho's first kill was not only groundbreaking for how it flipped an entire concept on its head and ushered in the proto-genre of slashers, but it also served to set up a legendary film for greatness. Not only all of that, but it also served as direct inspiration for the opening kill of Scream and helped to break down barriers in terms of censorship laws in films. Psycho changed a lot more than just expectations of where it's second act would go.

It (2017)

2017's reboot of Stephen King's IT was one for the history books. It made a lot of money and introduced a lot of people to the horrific gaze of Pennywise, mostly due to the opening scene of the film. When young Georgie goes out to let his paper boat sail in the overflowing sewer drains, his boat ends up falling into one of the drains. While looking for the boat, he comes face to face with a clown in the drain: Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Some creepy banter and scary implications happen and then, as Georgie is reaching into the drain to retrieve his boat, his arm is ripped off by Pennywise, and then he is dragged into the drain, never to be seen again. It's a confident, horrific way to start your film, but it really sets the tone of the film perfectly. There is a lot of narrative enigma around Georgie's death leading the viewer to imagine it in the most grusome way.

Character Archetypes in Slasher

There are several popular and overused tropes in the horror genre, from jump scares, to characters who aren’t believed, to swelling music in scary moments. The most popular trend is that of the final girl, scream queen and jock. In this blogpost I cover the different character archetypes in horror.

The Final Girl:

The term was invented in 1992 by author Carol J. Clover for her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. She defines it as "The Final Girl is a female who is the sole survivor of the group of people being chased by a villain, and who gets a final confrontation with the villain, and who has such a "privilege" because of her implied moral superiority." She is typically a brunette, being the binary opposition of The Scream Queen. She has no interest in sex, drugs and partying. The term refers to a horror film where the last person standing is the usually virginal heroine with moral standards who outlasts her friends and kills the villain in the end.

Examples of Final Girl in Horror:

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) - Sally Hardesty

Halloween (1978) - Laurie Strode 

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) - Dana Polk

The Scream Queen:

Stereotypically she is busty, blond, dumb, attractive, open about her sexuality and almost always white. 

In her essay, "Refusing To Refuse To Look", Brigid Cherry writes "one participant (in the study) described her feelings about characters she referred to as "the stereotypical bimbo": "I tend to find that I don't mind these women being victims- they deserve to be killed off!"" The Scream Queens are brutally killed off, for audience pleasure rather than plot. Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is considered as one of the first Scream Queens. 

Examples of Final Girl in Horror:

Scream (1996) - Casey Becker

Psycho (1959) - Marion Crane

Scary Movie (2000) - Drew Decker

The Jock:

Conventionally, through out horror, ''The Jock'' has been presented as strong, tough and popular. At times the character of the Jock serves the purpose of comedic relief. In horror the Jock is also know as the Scream King. Similarly to the Scream Queen, his death is often a punishment for immoral behaviour. 
Jocks are usually a secondary antagonist, typically embodying the common bully and meathead. You know the type; big, masculine, visually appealing, cool and athletic. Not all jocks are made up of negative traits. A good few players on this list possess some of the most endearing qualities strengthened by their dedicated athleticism.

Jocks have been a fun, quintessential trope used in a variety of horrors through the ages. Sometimes their character serve the purpose of comedic relief. While our survivor (Final Girl) rely on their brain to make it through, jocks rely on their biceps and ground tactics to take out the villains. It is, of course, a stereotype that has since been blurred by way of characterization, yet one we still see from time to time in the films we love.

Examples of Jocks in Horror:

The Cabin in The Woods (2001) – Curt Vaughan

The Final Girls (2015) – Kurt

Scream (1996) - Steven 

The Killer:

The anonymous killer is usually a man wearing all black, black leather boots, holding props such as knives, hammers, chainsaws or axes etc... The killer's face won't usually be shown, making them anonymous. The use of a mask, is especially common in franchises; e.g. Ghostface in Scream (1996), Micheal Myers in Halloween (1978) and the baby mask in Happy Death Day (2017). Another element in creating a character is having a distinct weapon, such as Leatherface's chainsaw in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).Although, some slasher films do show the killer's face or reveal who the killer is at the END of the film. In some cases the killer may be female e.g. in Jennifer's body, it is also known to the audience throughout the film that Jennifer is the killer. 

Sometimes The Killer is seen as superhuman, and impossible to defeat. They are usually serial killers with a revenge plan and choose their victims carefully, sadistically stalking and torturing for their own pleasure. The motive is usually split; either its a psychopathic killer with a will to murder, or a killer with a revenge plan. The revenge trope is often used with female rape victims turned killers, like Jennifer in Jennifers Body (2009) or Lora Lee Sherman in Cherry Falls (2000). 

Slasher films often show the villains development and backstory, for example Micheal Myers' childhood bloodlust, or Friday the 13th (1980) Jason Voorhees' bullying. Another trope is a connection to the protagonist, such as Ghostface and Sidney Prescott in Scream, or Lora Lee Sherman and Jody Marken in Cherry Falls. 

The use of a backstory creates further fear with the killers motives, making the killings more believable rather than a two dimensional character.

Examples of The Killer in Horror:

Halloween (1978) - Michael Myers

Scream (1996) - Ghostface