ANALYSIS OF THE OPENING OF THE CONJURING

The film starts with the company logo which is warner brothers but with a dark cloudy sky behind it with a non-diegetic eerie noise which immediately throws us into the fact that it’s not a happy bright film as straight away we are greeted with darkness and fear with the use of the black cloudy sky, which reinforces we are watching a horror film. We are then zoomed into the warner brother’s logo as it then turns into another one, this time New Line Cinema. While this is happening, the music is noticeably getting louder which is helping the create suspense and fear as it progressively building. The music then stops as we are then shown a black screen for 5 seconds until a voice of a woman comes on. We are still seeing the black screen as a the woman says “scares us just thinking about it, you’re going to think we’re insane” this straight away engages us as we have no idea what the woman is talking about and would really like to find out more, therefore we keep watching. The fact we are still staring at the black screen still helps not give any details away either as all we can hear is a voice, in a way its making us use our imagination as we have no idea about the situation, setting, etc, all we know is that it’s a woman talking about something that’s happened to her that is unsettling.  A man then speaks about telling the story “from the start” which helps engage us as well as we feel like we are going to be given information as to why and what the woman is talking about. 

 

Once they have finished speaking the black screen quickly disappears and an extreme close -up of a dolls eye comes into focus. The doll seems to be damaged and broken but considering it’s the first image we see its clear that this story is to do with this doll. The camera gradually zooms out from the dolls face while the woman talks about something that moves inside her apartment and although she’s not yet said it’s the doll it heavily implicated it as we are being shown a doll. Although it’s not clear who the doll belongs to, dolls are a childhood favourites, so even though it may not have anything to do with a child, we have all experienced a childhood with a doll as they are very recognisable. We are then shown two women and a man sat on a sofa. The subtitle “ Annabelle case – year 1969” helps make it feel extremely realistic, the body language of the man is very tense and uneasy as he is sat looking at the floor which we can pick up on straight away, this then makes us feel uneasy and question as to why he looks so uncomfortable. 

 

Within the first minute we are then told about a girl who used to live in the apartment who died, already we have been exposed to a death in the film. We then learn about the two women being nurses, they talk about the doll and how lonely is was, but the man still doesn’t say a word and is still looking at the floor. Next it clearly goes to a flashback of the women coming home one night and as they open the door they find a note saying “miss me?” on paper with a red crayon, which connotes it was a child or something young that wrote it as children usually use crayons. It then shows a shot of the doll sat on the floor, which automatically makes us question whether it was the doll that did it. As they walk towards it, the corridor is dark as there are no lights that seem to be on only ones coming in from the corridor they came in from and a light shining onto the doll which helps add tension. It also suggests that we are meant to be focusing on the doll. The voice of the woman is still ongoing as she says, “we left her in the spare room”, this stimulates our imagination again as we wouldn’t think a doll could move. The doll is seen to have red crayons in her hand the same ones that the note was written in. The music then builds as one of the women turn into the bedroom to see smashed pictures, smashed lamps and crayon all over the walls. We then follow the crayon up the wall to where it says, “miss me?” again. A red crayon is then rolled into the room. We again question whether a doll could actually do this. The fact it’s red connotes power and aggression as it’s a very bold colour and is also the same colour as blood but can also connote danger which puts emphasis on the choice of colour. The camera then zooms into the crayon which we are clearly meant to notice, while the camera is doing this the sound builds and gets louder. One of the women is then seen picking the doll up and throwing it in the bin outside. The bin is in a dark alley way, again the colours and feelings we get from an alley way where the bin is is very dark which again could suggest danger. When she slams the bin shut, we are then shown a black screen again for about 5 seconds. The fact they’ve done this again is creating more suspense and tension, but we also know it’s the very start of what the women were talking about, so we want to find out more. It’s a very action packed first 2 minutes and 45 seconds as we are thrown straight into the disruption which is the doll.