The film opens with title of the movie accompanied with the non digetic sound of a ringing phone followed by a loud scream. This informs the audience of the genre of the film they are about to watch, the scream connotes horror and violence.
The ringing of the phone is a sound bridge as it carried over to the next shot as we see a close up of a phone, thus the ringing becomes a digetic sound. The audience then see Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) answer the phone. She is wearing white which usually connotes purity and innocence however, in the scene she gets into a semi flirtatious mood with the caller despite her having a boyfriend, something that can be seen as the convention of a . She is also wearing make up which may represents this sexualised manner. Wes Craven is credited with defying the regular conventions associated with horror with this film.
After hanging up after the caller dials her again the location of the opening is revealed to be a large house though the use of a long shot. Having the framed on its own and I the center of the shot creates a feeling of isolatedion . This contributes to the tension of the scene as Casey is all alone and a sense of helplessness begins to build.
The caller calls yet again, and they start talking about scary movies, which at the time, having characters within a horror film be self aware and start referencing horror films was unheard of. Which gives credit to Scream and Wes Craven revolutionising the horror genre. A zoom in shot with Casey's face framed in the center shows the concern and fright that is on her face. The non digetic sound of a dog barking perhaps alludes to the killer's presence outside and Casey begins to lock the door in response to this.
The killer begins to get more violent on the phone and the on screen diegetic sound of popcorn on the stove is getting louder and the bag is getting bigger perhaps to heighten the growing tension of the scene. The close up of Casey's face when the killer threatens to kill her shows the true terror she is feeling and the horror of the overall scene, Casey's mode of address begins to get frantic and scared conveying the sense of fright and desperation.
After the threat a non digetic drum beat begins to play and after a screech Casey runs and the drums beat faster to accompany the growing tension of the scene, and perhaps to show that the killer is getting closer. As Casey locks all the doors the music stops leading the audience into a false sense of security. The silence isn't there for long as an offscreen digetic sound of a doorbell is heard making Casey scream and jump in terror.
Then the phone rings again making her scream, the use of a long shot leaves her open and exposed so the audience are looking around her environment in case the killer is stalking around the house. Casey answers the call and a long shot of the door leads the audience to believe that the killer is on the other side. Then the killer reveals he knows the name of Casey's boyfriend and the background music of the string instruments stop playing, a close up of Casey's face shows how scared she is.
The killer demands she turn on the patio lights, the lighting is low key yet bright enough for the audience to see her boyfriends bound and gagged body, however at the same time not bright enough for the, to feel safe and secure. A close up of Steve's (the boyfriend) face shows that he has been injured and the audience now know that this killer is not messing around and is a very real threat.
The lights are turned off at the killer's command and after Casey gets one of his questions wrong he says that Steve is going to die. The darkness of the shot doesn't show the audience the killer. Then the lights return and the audience see his mutilated body. After more back and forth between Casey and the killer, then a jump scare with the sound of glass cracking is a sound bridge between a shot of Casey cowering and a shot of a chair coming through the patio door.
We finally see the killer from a P.O.V of Casey and a screech of non diegetic string instruments accompanies this. A chase ensues and a long shot shows the audience how the killer is right behind Casey, framed right in the center to show his close proximity to Casey. He manages to catch her and stab her in the chest with the phone still in her hand.
In a close up shot the killer then stabs her in the throat and destroys her vocal chords and her mode of address becomes gargled, as she tries and calls for help conveying the hopelessness of the situation . The audience can see the pain of Casey's face and endure this pain with her. She then tries and calls for her parents who have just arrived at the house however the dramatic irony that the audience know that Casey is in trouble but her parents don't creates a sense of hopelessness. Her parents come into the house and see the fire on the stove as a result of the overcooked pop corn and start to panic. Her mother begins to call the phone and in a close up shot we see Casey being dragged by the killer with the phone still in hand, the close up allows the audience to see the panic on the mother's face.
The mother exits the house and screams. This clues the audience into the fact that something has happened but they are not shown until the camera zooms in onto Casey's gutted body hanging from a tree. The zoom is fast paced and shows her body in gory detail making the audience very uncomfortable.
The opening is brilliant as it establishes the genre of the film and shows the killer in full force and shows what he is capable of. Drew Barrymore did a lot of the promotional material for the movie so to see her get killed off in the first few minutes of the film was a real shock to the audience. However, in my opinion- this opening peaks the film much too soon, as the killer doesn't really appear for much of the film until the ending and when he does it doesn't impact the audience like he does in this opening.
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