What lies beneath opening analysis

What Lies Beneath Opening Sequence Analysis

The beginning of the opening sequence of what lies beneath the image starts out black, with non-diagetic sound which sounds a bit like white noise; this immediately creates tension and indicates horror within the film. The white noise is scary because it is often used in horror films and so when the audience hear it the immediately associate it with horror. We then start to hear water noises which we realise are diagetic, when water comes across the screen and the twentieth century fox and DreamWorks pictures presents comes up, this creates more tension because it is likely that the audience thought something was going to happen but now it hasn’t, they expect something to happen even more. The water gets lighter then darker, and turns to black which suggests something dark and nasty within the film. Whilst the screen is still black a non-diagetic deep noise comes on, and we see an ImageMovers production credit on the screen, and as this builds on the audience start to feel more and more tension and start to expect something scary to happen next. We then hear a tune which is played on the piano and it creates a great sense of mystery, and once this begins to play, we see the title of the film in the water, and this is when the film is about to start, and because the other music has started the audience start to feel calmer again and don’t expect to see anything too bad.

When the titles go off screen and it turns black again, a deep trumpet noise begins to come in and we hear things getting angrier and deeper. This sound continues on and the camera begins to move through the deep waters, and tension and anxiety are created because it makes the audience feel as though we are about to find something. The screen then goes black and we hear whispering, and the audiences fears go away because they are no longer in the deep dark waters, but the face of a dead woman begins to appear and the audience are immediately in fear, until the face fades into the face of an alive woman in the bath, this creates horror because the audience don’t expect it and therefore it can make them jump.

When the woman lifts out of the bath breathing heavily it is suggested that that could be her in the future, that it is one of her ancestors or that she was possibly imagining or dreaming about it, but because the audiences tension is built up they expect something to be there. When she sits up we see a medium shot of her, and we can also see everything that surrounds her and the audience then start to have a sense of awareness and think that something is there. As the camera slowly breathes in on her panting, it makes the audience think that there is something there which she hasn’t noticed yet because she is concentrating on getting her breath back but the audience, however are concentrating on her, which makes us think that something else could be. We then see her hand picking the hairdryer up to clean the mirror, and straight away the use of the mirror creates a sense that there will be something in the reflection because mirrors are associated with horror, and the audience begin to expect these things. Also the ambient sound of the hairdryer creates a sense of chaos, although there may not be any going on it shows that the woman cant hear anything so there could be something or someone behind here, and this noise combined with the mirror creates greater suspense.

After this the hairdryer goes off and we begin to have more evidence that it is possible for something to be there, when the woman goes to turn it back on by the plug she gets electrocuted, and jumps, which makes the audience jump because the tension is already built up and they expected something, but didn’t know what it was.

When the hairdryer comes back on and a pan shot is used to look at her in the mirror she is drying, we become more scared because as the camera pans round we expect something there too, and it then cuts to her opening the curtains and we see that nothing is going to happen in the mirror.

As she opens the curtains in another room and light is let in there is still low key lighting used, so we can see that something is still going on even though everything else is normal, and this creates a lot of mystery. The camera then cuts to the girl asleep in the bed and light is shone upon her which could suggest a hero or goodness, rather than evil and the audience start to have a sense of safety for the previous character again. After the scene when the woman is waking Caitlin up we see her walking down a corridor of what is presumably her house, and the lighting is very low-key which creates tension again. As the camera pans to show her walking into a room where she says hey to cooper, we expect to see something else or someone else in the room which may shock the character and when we see there isn’t the tension goes away again. After playing with the dog she goes to her lamp to adjust it as though its been moved and she slowly turns around and by this point the tension is built up extremely so its as though the audience and the character expect something or someone to be there.