- Friday The 13th (1980) - This was one of the first slasher films. A group of camp councellers are trying to re-build a summer camp which was the site of a child drowning, an unkown murderer violently kills them one by one.
Starts with the production company, then a black screen and the noises of outside
The first camera shot tilts downwards slowly from the sky. Low pan whilst singing is heard. The happy singing gives the contrast to what is about to happen. There is very little script and the mostly screams. The camera shot seems to be a point of view shot from where the killer is looking, this immediately tells the audience that the victims are being watched. The characters are young adults – the audience can relate to. As the killer is walking towards the victim it is a point of view dolly shot and the diegetic sound of their foot seps. The non-diegetic sound used is music to build up tension that gets louder and faster when the violence strikes. After the first killing, that is when the films title and credits are shown, with background scary music.
- Halloween II (1981) - This was also one of the first slasher films, and the sequel to Halloween I, which set the conventions for many of the others that followed. The plot of Halloween II is nearly the same as the first film, as the search for the psychotic killer Micheal Myers carries on.
This opening begins with a common convention of horror films – a dark night with a bright moon – one convention that is broken however is the happy up-beat music that is very rarely used at the beginning of horror films. Halloween 2 may have used it because the audience watching are likely to have seen Halloween 1 therefore know the genre and can predict much of the content of the film, therefore it doesn’t need to start with scary music to establish the genre. The first camera shot also starts from the sky and tilts downwards. The eerie looking house is another convention commonly used. The first violence by the killer is almost immediate to establish the slasher genre, however unusually the killer is killed straight away within the first two minutes. Although this is the case, the audience are likely to know there will be a twist to come. The lighting is low key and there is not a lot of speech/diegetic sound.
- I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) - This is a more modern slasher horror film and is also a sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The plot includes a fisherman who stalks the two teenagers who survived the last film. There is a lot of murder and violence and as in most slasher films contains a murderer/stalker.
Starts with a black screen then the production company and the title, first shot starts high then tilts downwards. Long shot follows then tilts upwards again, followed by a close up medium shot. The eerie music starts when the title is shown and continues until the bang of the door. The diegetic sounds includes the character speaking, then the non-diegetic music starts to build up again. The lighting is very low key; most of the backgrounds are pitch black, whilst the characters faces are lit up. This horror film builds up more slowly than the older ones, and begins with an immediate twist (the girl character has killed somebody), rather than an actual killing or violence in the first few minutes.
From all the baove research we have found that horror film openings all have the non-diegetic sound of the music to create tension, they also mostly begin with a high angle shot which then tilts downwards slowly. They also always have the production company and logo to begin with (usually infront of a black background) followed by other credits and the film title. There is very little speach dependent on how much atmosphere the opening creates and within the first couple of minutes there is a murder. The killer's point of view is always shown to make the audience aware that the victims are being watched. The lighting is always low-key and the mise-en-scene is used to create realism, such as the realistic locations such as the church in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and the summer camp in Halloween 2.The costumes of the victims also appear "normal" and the killers are usually dressed in dark colours and disguised.
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