Main task research/planning [3] Analysis

Genre: Horror


Halloween (1978)

This movie is set I 1963 at Halloween time and the first thing we can hear is the diegetic sound of children saying Halloween rhymes and the establishing shot is of quite a big house and the camera is hand-held this is because it gives the impression of someone point of view and as if someone is walking up to the house. In this mise-en-scene all we see is a house with a few lights on but we cannot see anything around the house because it is dark outside. The camera then goes closer towards the house as if someone is walking up to the house, the camera then pans around the side of the house to look through the window and we see a couple kissing. The effect of this hand-held camera movement is that it is someone looking through the window and we as the audience are seeing it from this person’s eyes. The camera then moves into the house after the couple are out of sight and the camera is in the kitchen but we cannot see much as it is too dark to see anything. The man then puts on the light and then we see a man’s arm reaching out into the kitchen draw, we now know that this camera is the point of view of the man. The man then pulls out a kitchen knife and walks through the house and up the stairs to murder the couple he saw through the window.