Thriller Analysis

One of the Thriller openings I am going to analyse is David Fincher’s Panic room. In the opening title sequence we see an urban landscape with titles on top of buildings. By opening the film with an urban landscape it sets the scene and lets the auidence know it’s in a big city and in this case New York. The titles are 3-D and are placed parallel in front of the building, this is done for aesthetics and just makes the opening title sequence more interesting than a 2-D Title cards. After the titles we are introduced to the protagonist (Jodie Foster) and her daughter then we are introduced to were the film is set the house. The music used is all string music which really creates atmosphere and keeps the auidence on edge suspecting some thing bad is going to happen.
There is not much which I wish to take from this extract in my own work other than use of string music to build tension and make intresting titles.
The extract below is only 1:51 because I couldnt upload or find a longer extract.


The next thriller opening I am going to analyse is Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” (2000). The opening is miss leading, it makes the audience start to think that there is blood coming down the screen and just to reassure you it blood there is a couple of blood splats. But then you see a squiggle of red then you question which you first thought thinking maybe this is art? Then a massive knife comes into shot with the protagonists name on it! Yet again making you question what you last thought. Harron keeps making the audience think from the first second and this keeps the audience engaged and wanting to know what is happening within just the titles sequence! Harron then goes on to set the scene in this extremely high-class restaurant were we meet our protagonist suggesting that he is also high-class. Harron has also used string music at the beginning but it isn’t as minor and as eerie as Fincher’s “Panic room”.


I would defiantly love to use some elements of this in my thriller such as the engaging beginning and string music.
here is the link to the extract because the user has disabled embeding this clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXESFT2sRQb


The next thriller Opening I am going to analyse is Bress and Grubers "The Butterfly Effect" (2004) The opening is a title card with quote saying "It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterflys wings can ultimatley cause a typhoon halfway around the world - Chaos Theory" The title card is white on black showing its quite serious and the quote also has a serious nature about it. Unlike most of the other thrillers I have seen or writern about this one goes straight into the action without introducing the actors or cast. We see a person walking on the other side of the glass, but because the glass is textured we cant tell if it's male or female or protagonist or antagonist. This adds and air of mystery to the beging. We are then introduced to our protagnosit who kicks the door open wearing what seems to be a patients scrubs. He is quite a rush he jumps under the desk with a pen and paper and starts to write what he is going to do, which now seems very odd.