Opening Scene Analysis: Sinister

Opening scene analysis of Sinister

The 2012 horror film Sinister directed by Scott Derekison has a short yet impacting opening sequence lasting around 1 minute. In this establishing scene, the audience become immediately aware of the key themes and ideas that are going to be present later in the film consequently enticing the audience to keep watching due to the strained atmosphere. Tense environments are a common convention of horror movies, this is also evident here. From just the first few seconds of the opening the audience are able to identify the genre of horror due to the eerie diegetic sound of the rolling tape playing the footage of what is being shown on screen - at 0:06 the mise en scene is of people (in which seem to be a family) with bags on their heads, in a forest setting making it clear to the audience at this stage in the film their identity is being kept exclusive, making the audience feel like they are being kept out the loop. I am going to take inspiration and use this technique of keeping the audience excluded from all of the information as it helps create enigma codes, thus keeping the audience watching, in this circumstance and example of enigma codes created is (who are these people with bags on their heads? Why are they here?)


The lack of pace editing throughout the scene results in a long take and which I feel has an impact on the viewer. Meaning thus, the audience begin to become apprehensive about what is going to happen as the long take suggests that something has got to happen at some point. Then at 0:27 the mise en scene begins to adjust and the victims begin to be hoisted up and the tree begins to fall. This technique is successful in drawing in a main stream audience as it keeps us all watching in order to reach the climax of the opening. I would like to attempt something similar in my own production.

This opening uses a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound is used through the sounds of clicking and the tape rolling. The sound is gentle which indicates tension and is a juxtaposition of what is going on in the agitated opening scene in which they can see on the screen. This adds the realism to the piece gives the idea that it is being played live, something in which I would like to replicate in my production. The non diegetic sound is the strong bass sounds which are heard alongside the diegetic sounds. Both these bring different parts to the opening individually but together they create a perfect horror atmosphere.

The title of the film 'Sinister' is then sprawled across in small, messy white handwriting which has been edited over the clip. The scratched messy hand writing is a generic convention of horror films as a lot of the films in this genre have the same style title. This convention has connotations of children as the handwriting is messy, indicating the fact that children are going to be involved in the opening scene.

After analysing this scene, and understanding the conventions and generic themes of the horror genre, I have taken inspiration from the shots and overall themes used in this scene. The sound in particular I found was a very effective technique in creating suspension in a horror opening, therefore I will try and replicate the sound like in this opening scene.