Critical Investigation - Task 1

Sinister Extended Cut Endings

This video clip is from the First Sinister movie by Scott Derrickson which was released in October 2012. The beginning of the video clip is someone turning ON the switch to the operator. The camera movement then slowly moves to the protagonists face who is the dad in the movie, there is then a close up of his face looking at the big projector. The setting is that the man is shown to be sitting in a big dark room which shows to have low key lighting.He has put on old videos that he found from the previous family who loved in the same house as him, the camera then moves back to the man face and the lighting had become more low key so it looks quite dark. the sound in the background is quite spooky and demanding which connotes that something bad is about to happen. the video footage shows a family handing on a tree with a rope tied around their necks and their faces are covered wit bags, suddenly the man spots something. The young girl from the previous family is climbing back down from the same tree her family is hanging down from, the little girl then walks up to one of the bodies and starts swinging off it pretending she is at the park swinging on a climbing frame, this automatically suggests that the little girl could be possessed in some sort of way as this is shown not to be normal behaviour. The girl then skips towards the camera and stands there with her finger covering her mouth (the sign saying shhh) the man then recognises the girl by saying her name in shock then she suddenly disappears from the screen. The next shot is of a car on fire with chains around it.. then a young boy comes in front looking directly at the screen, doing the same gesture as the girl, (shhh) the camera goes back to the low key lighting and colours are very dark ans dull. the man then looks confused at the child and then the boy disappears again. through out the video clips there are different tragic deaths that have happened and a child has appeared ion the screen doing then same gesture, this shows that the children are the ones who are killing people and the gesture (shhh) is being repeated by all the children which shows that some demon could be possessing them to be doing this and they know what they are doing isnt right so they do the particular gesture to sort of show that it is a secret and they don't want to tell anyone. 

Orphan Trailer 

I feel that this film trailer successfully and conventionally follows the typical structure of film trailers. It starts off slowly, letting us know that this family was going to adopt a child, called Esther. Then towards the middle of the film trailer we begin to find out that this child is troubled, and there is something wrong. Then, the climax appears and we receive a visual montage of the different types of torment that Esther puts this mother and family through. The structure allows the audience to know what the general narrative of the film is about, but doesn’t give too much away which allows the audience to remain intrigued. For example, we see the other children in the film being used to get to the mother, e.g. when the little girl gets pushed in front of the car, etc. But we never get to see the outcome, or what happens to the child. An enigma is set up too; we know something is wrong with Esther, but what? When watching this trailer, I realised that the mood and the target audiences understanding of the film trailer is created through mise en scene elements such as lighting, body language, setting and so on. Settings/ backgrounds are used throughout this trailer to create realism. The typical conventions that we see in any psychological horror film are also shown in this film trailer which will appeal and attract to the correct target audience. For example, schools are a common convention of a psychological horror film and in this film trailer; we see two different schools in different locations. This could be because of the fact that the killer has had a bad childhood and wants to seek revenge on other children/ teenagers, for example.  Also, the main setting is in the family’s home which is the most common setting for any horror film of any sub genre. This could be because the audience are therefore able to picture themselves in this situation and would therefore be more thrilling and un-nerving. We see a hospital, a park and so on, and these types of setting simply create realism. In one scene in the park, where Esther spots the girl that bullied her about the way she dressed, we see her follow the girl up to the top of one of the play instruments where she appears to push her off. A shot is then shown of Esther at the top, looking powerful and like it was her kingdom, her domain, due to the low angle of the shot. Other mise-en-scene elements add to the effect. Esther’s dark, old-fashioned costume and the shape of her hat give her a witch-like appearance that immediately leads us to see her as evil, sinister and a danger to innocent children.