Analysis of the opening to Halloween (1978)

Halloween is a horror film in the slasher movie genre. This is shown by the villain being a human wielding a knife as opposed to using a supernatural threat.  This makes the movie scarier as it is more realistic.

Low key lighting is used to create fear in the audience as people are scared of the dark. The opening scene introduces the character of Michael Myres to the audience. The scene is shot in the first person to bring you closer to the character and makes you feel worse when he does something awful as it is like you are doing it, bringing brief feelings of guilt to the audience.

The film is set in a typical suburban neighbourhood making it relatable to the audience showing that it could happen to them. It contrasts the known of the normal house with the unknown of the murderer.

The pumpkins give us an impression of time - it is set on Halloween which makes it spookier since people associate fear with that time of the year.

The light going out around the cross on the window represents the couple abandoning religion for sex which may anger Micheal. The church bells sound like funeral bells signalling that death is approaching.

Michael's mask is shown early on in a lighter tone foreshadowing it to be used menacingly later on. There is a spotlight on the mask before being picked up by Michael showing its importance.

Darkness around the eyes could represent Michael’s turn to darkness when he puts on the mask.  It also hides most of the scene making the situation more mysterious.

There is dissonant music in the background throughout, which gets louder, for example in the scene where Michael gets the knife, implying danger. Finally discordant music is used to great effect building up to the murder of Michael's sister enhancing the fear factor.

The murder is similar to the famous shower scene in the movie Psycho in that there is no blood or cuts shown on camera and all the violence is implied. This is done through clever editing making the audience think they saw blood when in actuality nothing has been shown.

The murder is very sexualised making the audience uncomfortable and unsure of what to feel, this is controversial to see a women being killed in that way.

In the final shot of the scene the narrative changes to the third person and the killer is unmasked. The reveal is that the killer we have been following for the scene is just a young boy. It is shocking for the audience to see someone who looks so innocent and sweet be capable of something so horrible. This is foreshadowed earlier on in the movie with his hand being show giving the audience a clue to the twist. The camera pulls away as Michael looks on showing Michael is still out there and may strike again.

Evaluate how 'Deadpool' became a box office a box-office success and how a film's success is measured.

Success is measured in different ways. Mostly it is about how financially successful it is at the box office when it releases. Although some movies do not make much profit to begin with, over time they gather more popularity and can become cult classics.  Other ways in which a film can be deemed successful are longevity, being critically acclaimed and winning awards.

Deadpool, given its small budget and off the wall humour was never sure to make money, but in actuality it became massively successful earning $782,612,155 worldwide according to boxofficemojo.com which was roughly 14 times the movies budget. It also was critically successful having an 84% positive rating on rottentomatoes.com with critics enjoying its unique humour.

One of the main reasons this movie was successful was that the source material was already popular with the large comic book fan base, who wanted to see the movie before it was even out.

The movie had been in development since the early 2000s but kept being shelved as various studios didn’t have faith in the project. Over that time the audience for the movie grew as there became more Deadpool fans. It was only in 2014 where according to cinemablend.com, test footage of the movie was leaked onto the internet. This was popular with fans so the studio greenlit the project.

 Deadpool’s character had already appeared in the 2009 movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine also played by Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds played a different version of the character to what he did in the Deadpool movie. The version of Deadpool in that movie was unlike the original comic book character, taking away all the things the fans originally loved about the character leading to the film’s failure. When the new movie was eventually released fans were happy that it was the Deadpool they originally fell in love with in the comic book proving that being accurate to the source material pays off.

Superhero movies with high age ratings are often not successful as the core target audience of teenagers would not be able to legally see the movie. This led to speculation that like most other superhero movies it would be rated 12 in UK and pg-13 in the US although most fans didn’t want this as they wanted to see the vulgar language, violence and gore that Deadpool is typically known for in a movie. This opinion was also shared by the movie’s producer Lauren Schuler Donner according to cinemablend.com. The movie was finally given a 15 in the UK and an R rating in the US. Fans still went to see the movie proving that if done right they can make a successful superhero movie with a high age rating.

Extensive viral marketing was used to gain interest in the movie mostly poking fun at the different ways movies are promoted. Some examples are shown below:

               

 

 

This matches the humour used in the movie and gets interest from new people who may have enjoyed the trailers and posters so would check the movie out.

Deadpool was successful because it was unique and original giving audiences something they don’t often see instead of giving them the same old superhero movie that there are so many of. The movie is primarily a comedy so people who not fans of superhero movie still had something to enjoy. .  Deadpool’s meta- humour and breaking of the fourth wall allows the movie to poke fun at itself and be more relatable to the audience. This unique combination of factors ensured that Deadpool became a hit.

Captain America: Civil War personal response

My favourite movie of the summer was Captain America: Civil War which is the third Captain America movie and the thirteenth film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The plot of the movie is: the government releases a new act where the Avengers have to only go on government approved missions to prevent the harm of innocent civilians. This leads to the Avengers being divided into who agrees and who disagrees with this proposition.

The Russo brothers manage to perfectly write a large cast of characters. Not only did it include most of the heroes from the previous movies, it also introduces Black Panther and the new version of Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even though it has a total of twelve superheroes it still is balanced and gives each character a time to shine.  The plot still remains focused on the main characters of Captain America and Iron Man.

The character of Captain America has changed since the first movie, as in the first film he is used as a tool for the government to fight their battles; in the second, he learns that the government are not always what they seem and not to be trusted. In this movie he is finally taking a stand against the government which opposes his original purpose - even going as far as putting down his shield at the end of the movie symbolising him giving up the role of Captain America. His main goal is to protect Bucky from harm destroying his relationship with his teammates in the process.

Iron Man on the other hand, feels guilty and wants to make up for his actions. Although he is the antagonist of the movie, he is not the villain. The movie makes it debatable whether Captain America or Iron Man were correct. The closest thing the movie has to a villain is Zemo who is just a man manipulative enough to split up the team. His motivation is to avenge the death of his wife which parallels Black Panther and Iron Man who blame Bucky for the death of their parents.

Black Panther is a great introduction of a new character and good representation of an African superhero. Spider-man brings back the youth and fun to the character that other versions lacked. Vision has developed from being just the deus ex machina at the end of the last movie to becoming more human because of his relationship with Wanda. He has gone from solving problems for Stark to creating them.

The action scenes in the movie are very well edited and remain relatively grounded for most of the movie until the airport scene where they show off the more science fiction based powers like Ant-man shrinking and growing. This scene is one of best action scenes in superhero movies as it shows every character fight each other at once using their powers to their full potential. Constantly showing the audience things they have not seen before.

The final fight between Captain America, Iron Man and Bucky is a powerfully emotional scene where none of the characters are holding back from killing each other. Before the scene it tricks the audience into thinking things will resolve when in actuality they get worse. It is heart-breaking to see the characters you’ve followed through all the movies beat each other in such a brutal way. Captain America: Civil War was the best movie of summer 2016 as it showed the characters deal with the consequences of their actions whilst not shying away from using the humour you would expect from a Marvel movie.  It has all the best things from the other marvel movies and more, I would definitely recommend the movie.