Scream Openning Scene

While watching the opening scene of the film Scream we can see and hear many codes and conventions which communicate the horror genre of the whole film. The first one is the title itself. This is because scream might have various connotations; some of them might be fear, pain or agony. So by seeing the title on its own we can imagine that the film might be based on these subjects. But going into the scenes, firstly we can denote that we see an innocent blonde woman. Why innocent? It's because she is wearing a white top and light coloured trousers; the colour white connotes purity, goodness and innocence which is how she was supposed to be presented to us. I think that her clothes were chosen on purpose so they would signify these ideas to us. But, I also, mentioned that she is blonde, this is also an important aspect, because we associate that blonde women might be less intelligent, which would signify that she might not be able to escape from the person that would be trying to get her, as they might be more intelligent than her; this would mean that they would have a plan how to catch her and she might panic, act in a way which would make her more vulnerable and not be able to think clearly which wouldn't help her with the escape. While we are introduced to the character we can hear the telephone ringing; it seems like a normal action to pick up a ringing phone to know who calls, but I think that the stranger felt like he would be invited by her, to her life, when she picked up the phone, because after she picked up the phone the first time, he kept on persistently calling her. I suspect that if she wouldn't have picked up the phone then he might have let go as he might have felt like she had rejected his request to be part of her life. But because she did pick up he kept on calling her; in the first call we can hear his voice which is really calm, strangely too calm, we can't hear any surprise in the tone of his voice that he has heard a voice of a woman which he never heard before, this might connote that he has called her on purpose and is just lying to her that he doesn't know what number he has dialled. And although he is trying to make the woman think that it is just a coincidence that he has called her by acting like a fool and asking her 'what number is this', the tone of his voice contradicts it all. These aspects might connote that he has a plan that is related to her because he isn't surprised that she doesn't want to talk to him, but still keeps on calling. The action is taking place at night which is an iconic time for the horror films, as a great majority of them are surrounded by darkness, this is because we can't see anything at night and people are usually scared of what they can't see or understand. Also, because we can't see much in the dark, the objects that we see, or rather their outlines seem to be more scary because our imaginations is making these objects look like something similar to the objects that scare us, or what we are expecting to be there. So within the arms of darkness, there is one shot showing the swing moving. The swing might have been moving because of the wind, but as we are introduced to the characters and the beginning of the storyline, the swing might suggest to us a very crucial part of the narrative, that the calling stranger might be within the woman's property. After that shot the film shows us scenes from the kitchen which has its own mise en scene that reveals as the narrative progresses. The first important aspects of the kitchen are the knives which are taken out by the woman and they make this symbolic sharp metallic noise which can only be associated with killing. Also, popcorn is very important through that scene because it grows along with the rise of the climax, this could symbolise that when the popcorn will blow up the narrative might be resolved. During the kitchen scene they start to talk about scary movies and the stranger makes her guess which is his favourite scary movie, while they talk we can hear satisfaction in his voice, as though he would be pleased to hear her talk about brutal and maniacal monsters from those movies. This might indicate that he likes the thought of pain and death and when he can find someone to talk about it he is really pleased. After that they start to kind of flirt with each other, at least she thinks that this is what he is doing. Who in the right mind flirts with a stranger that has called them and tells them that they don't have a boyfriend even though we learn later that she really does have a boyfriend? This action might show the blonde woman stereotype, because I think that she has forgotten that he is a stranger and persistently calls her even when she told him that she doesn't want to talk to him. When he stops asking her about her boyfriend, he tries again at getting to know what her name is, when she asks him why he wants to know he replies 'I want to know who I'm looking at', at that point a mysterious soundtrack is played. His words might signify what I wrote before, that he is right outside her house and doesn't plan to leave without doing what he has planned. Also, after he says that, we can hear a dog barking outside which might connote that someone strange is outside, because dogs usually bark when they see a stranger walking past their property or when they are walking onto it. This information makes her feel insecure in her own house and she starts to lock the doors in the house even the glass doors. While she does that a tense soundtrack is played to make the scene look scarier than it really is, because nothing is really happening during it, we are just told that he might be outside the house. The soundtrack stops when she locks all the doors to make it seem like she is now safe because she has locked herself inside. But, really how safe can she be? She has glass doors all over her house, it just takes someone to have something heavy on them and they can easily break the glass and enter the house, so it is foolish of her to think that she might be safe, and locking the glass doors. It would have been better for her if she left the doors unlocked, because, by now we are sure that the stranger will enter the house, and she, if she wanted to escape, would have to open at least one of the doors that she closed, to escape, so this will take her time which she could have spent on escaping rather than opening the doors, this makes her more vulnerable. So after she locked all the doors she talks with the stranger again, and a tense soundtrack is put back on when he says 'to see what your insides look like' in relation to what he wants from her. There is also another sign that purely tells us that he is outside, because all the others might have suggested that, but when he says 'turn on the patio lights, again', and knows the name of her boyfriend we can really get scared for her life, as it seems that he is some kind of maniac because he really tortures her mentally during the last minutes of the opening scene.