The analysis of the opening of "THE OTHER"

The other (2001)

How far is this an effective opening to a horror film? 

The opening scene for the movie "The Others"  starts by naming the production company which is "Dimension Films" and turns into the black scene with a non-diegetic sound of a woman's voice. Her voice is lovely which give the impression to the audience that this will be lovely storytelling to the children as she said “now children, are you sitting comfortably then I will begin?”. 

The others used storytelling to conduct the opening scene of the film. The opening sequence begins with the close-up shot of the sunset and then zoom out to show the surrounding which seems to be somewhere near the forest with a river, animals, and plants which may be a link to the setting of the film. The iris transition appears when a black circle closes to end a scene where there are two children holding the hand looked forward to the view. This creates the impression that children are important. The sound is non-diegetic with the mix of music behind her voice. The music is full of many instrumental which gives a feeling of calm, peaceful and somehow sad. In the next scene, the stairs are shown with the name of this film “the others” place in the middle. The mother was sitting on the chair which shows that she is the most powerful because her daughter is standing and her son are playing a toy on the floor. The image flickers in, with someone holding a candle and then focus on another hand when she’s going to unlock the door. It gives the audience the feeling of being in shadows, half knowing and half not knowing. It creates a sense of anticipation. The candle is a prop which tells that the story is set in the long past when there is no light. In the next scene, a girl is pointing at something which is a clue. The terrifying facial expression leads us to feel that maybe after she opened the door there is something scary behind the door. In the beginning, we didn't expect this to be a horror film. The story becoming somehow distracted when it shows the angel doll with a broken neck as it begins with a lovely storybook and it becomes more disturbing as the story keeps going on. The music also getting louder with a faster beat which creates a feeling of uncertainty and nervousness. The iris transition is used in all of the sequences, in the beginning, the scene with iris in and end the scene with an iris out. 

There is a graphic match cut changing from the image of a storybook to the real setting in 1945. The river in front of the house makes me feel that it must be a link between the first scene where it set in the forest and showing a boy and a girl. The context of this film is shown in a white font. The next scene begins with a diegetic sound of screaming and crying which give tension to the audience since the beginning. The screaming leads us to feel that she must have had a nightmare and that is the reason that she woke up and was crying and shaking. A woman is lying down on the bed with the use of close up shot on her face and the camera then rotated at the same time as zooming out. The sound bridge of someone laughing from the next scene begins before we actually see it. The long shot showing the surrounding with the house and there are three people are walking towards the house. All of them are wearing black clothes which is the color of death, mystery, unhappiness and fear. The medium shot showing one of then knocking the door and they are waiting in front of the house. There is another sound bridge as we can hear the sound of a key before the door is opened.  She’s only open half as we only see her face this gives the feeling that is really careful about whos going to enter her house. The surrounding inside the house and the outside are telling that they must be a wealthy family. The medium shot is used during their conversation.