Scream Opening Sequence

Scream Opening Sequence

To begin with the screen starts off blank with music playing in the background, until the title comes onto the screen with a bang and a phone ringing, which could be a signifier that a phone call will be significant in this film, as well as a woman screaming when the title turns blood red connoting that someone is dying, as well as the sound of slashing knives, and what the film will be about. Once there is something visible on screen the screaming cuts out and there are no hints that something bad is happening when the character comes on screen to answer the phone. The character is revealed and she is a stereotypical horror character, as she is a wearing tight clothes and is acting dumb as is stereotypical for female characters to be. The conversation is pleasant even with the hint that a phone call is dangerous, the man on the end of the phone is not menacing to begin with. However the scream and the phone call audio at the beginning could arguably be signifying what is going to happen to the character. When the camera shows the house it is cut off from anywhere who could help if the character needed it, when that happens there is a tree with a swing that is swinging which is indexical as it is representing that someone has been there and that the woman is not completly alone.
When the man continually calls back they begin to converse about their favourite horror movies that involve knives to kill people, this is quite ironic that they are as that is how she will eventually die. The atmosphere and music alters when the man on the phone says 'I want to know who I'm looking at' as this is the point where everything changes, as something is not quite right. When the man on the phone begins to become angry that she keeps hanging the phone up on him, his tone of voice changes and his heavy breathing gives off an atmosphere that she is not safe as is usual for a horror film. The continual phone calls become iconic as that is the way that this killer taunts his victims throughout the rest of the film. When the girl attempts to lock herself in the house she looks out of a window and the window frame symbolically looks like prison bars and suggest that she is locked in the house and will not get out. Towards the end of the opening scene the more distressed the woman gets the more tense the music becomes and the popcorn that she is making is getting bigger and bigger symbolising her building fear.