Analysis of thriller openings

Children of men

The scene starts of with a blank screen with voice overs of various people making news reports, the last one being about how the youngest person has died. This already makes the audience interested in the movie, they want to know why people have stopped having children. The next scene shows a group of people in a coffee shop all staring at something which we believe to be a tv, in shock and horror. This further adds to the mystery of what has happened as the audience now wants to know why the someone dying is so bad. The fact that the man who enters the shop has to push his way though the crowd, and the looks they give him further shows the shock and horror of the events they are watching. The whole opening is very quiet with only the sound of the news reporters, man asking for a coffee and noises of the traffic, so when the explosions occurs it makes it even more surprising.


Memento

The opening shows a photograph of a murder scene, being held by a mystery person. As time goes on, the photo un-develops, at which point the audience realises it is going back in time. This gets the audience's interest as they now know that they will see the murder from the photo. After the photo had finishes un-developing, the audience sees the the person who has been murdered on the floor, and this too goes back in time as we see the blood of the person flow back to his body.This horrifies the audience as not only have the witnessed a murder which is disturbing, but in reverse which is not what is usually expecting. After this we finally see the murderer, but by this time the audience is not as worried as to who he is, but why the murder was shown in reverse.



A history of violence

The start shows two men in a car outside a motel talking. The only other sound heard is that of insects. This creates a calm and desolate scene. The men talk calmly which further adds to this. When one of the men enters the motel again, the audience sees blood, and then a murder scene. The man walks calming past it all to get some water. This is unnerving as this isn't the usual reaction you would expect when someone sees a murder scene. This automatically makes the audience realise that the reason for this must be because the man was expecting it, and so must of committed these murders. A young girl then comes of of a room, we know she has seen the dead bodies as she is crying, the man then crouches down and tried to silence her crying. The fact her once again does this all so calmly is unnerving, and we know that the man is abut to do something horrifying. The man then takes a gun out, and points it at a girl, which really horrifies the audience. Just as the shot if fired however, the frame changes, and so we don't know if the girl was shot or not. This makes the audience interested in the movie as they want to know if the girl was killed or not.