Prom night analysis notes

Prom night

Layout/ order of film

Beginning- Challenges the conventional structure, starts with the disequilibrium

The male gaze, the girl’s friend has a low cut top and as she runs away her dress rips.

Characters

Blond girl with a pink jacket and a cheerleader, typical victim character. Empathise with the character because she has gone through a traumatic period and is vulnerable.  The young couple are in love, typical group of characters all young and naive.  

The villain wears a discise by cutting off his hair and wearing a hat.

Location

Where the initial horror takes place it’s in an isolated house.  To make the feeling more trapped she is hidden under a bed. When a person walks around the hotel room the lights are always off, this way the viewer can’t see what’s coming next, this builds anticipation.

One of the victims are in a basement of the hotel, the visibility is poor and makes it hard for the viewer to see what is happening, this makes the viewers imagination run wild.

Props

Blood on hands

Knife, guns

Sounds

Police sirens

Loud vibrant music at the prom reflecting the positive and uplifting atmosphere, when the camera is on the villaions face the prom music fades and its replaced with eerie string music slowly building. This is showing a shift in the atmosphere.

Creeking floor boards show she isn’t alone, building of footsteps hightens the anticipation

Editing

Slow motion of the plate smashing shows the significance of the bad, black out insertions used during the killing of the butler. This creates confusion.

Camera angles/ shots

Slow pan into the name winn who is the hero of the film (detective).during the prom scene many of the caera shots are midshots t show the scenery and the characters facial expressions. When she is alone in her room the camera pans around to follows showing she is being watched.

When the first girl is killed the camera cuts quickly making the viewer disorientated, in addition the camera is in an extreme  zoom position which means the viewer is unable to see the rest of the scene allowing their mind to guess what’s happening with builds the anticipation.

 An extreme low angle is used when the killer attacked the first girl, this shows that he has the power in the situation. When the girl (victim) is running away from the killer a hand held shake camera is used.