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.