Session 9 (Brad Anderson, 2001)

I watched Session 9 a couple of weeks ago (stupidly, with the lights off), after it was suggested to me when I idiotically said I wanted to watch a scary film…

Psychological thrillers are my favourite type of scary film – gory horrors don’t do much for me, as I can convince myself that they’re not real, and everyone’s just covered in ketchup. Psychological thrillers, though, do exactly as expected; they get inside my head and shake me up, leaving me sleeping with the light on for weeks.

The plot focuses on an asbestos removal crew working at an old, abandoned mental asylum. Alongside the group’s fall outs and individual problems, Mike discovers some audio tapes of a patient’s hypnotherapy sessions, which slowly reveal the young girl’s disturbed past throughout the film. It’s creepy and weird, and even more disturbing because it’s a real mental illness…

Session 9 starts off well, and builds up a good story… However, it’s as though the writers ran out of steam, and didn’t know how to end it. It seems to trail off and gets a bit confusing.

As well as this, it builds up the tension and just as it gets to a point where it seems as though something is going to happen, there is suddenly a very odd camera shot… This took me out of the film completely, and actually made me laugh, which is never the aim in a thriller.

Overall, it was a good idea for a film, just not very well executed. Nevertheless, it was creepy and disturbing, and that’s exactly what’s expected from a film like this.

28 Weeks Later (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007)

Media Studies has really opened my eyes to the world of film. I used to just watch films when I had spare time, and I usually only re-watched the ones I knew I liked. Now, I watch films much more frequently, I’m more interested, I watch films which take me out of my comfort zone, and I properly focus on them rather than just having something on in the background.

However, this means I’m much more critical of films that I watch. I notice mistakes in films too, and the one I watched last night had several. For example, after a battle with zombies which resulted in several zombies being shredded by a motor boat, the water became immediately calm and blood free. When the survivors are driving to escape the toxic gas, the windshield is covered in blood, which disappears in the next shot, then reappears. When a man was set on fire, I didn’t feel that sorry for him at all; mainly because the fire proof gloves on his hands were pretty obvious.

The plot itself was also disappointing. The acting was bad, and I didn’t empathise with the characters at all. If anything, I was hoping the zombies would catch up with them.

The film begins with a couple, Don and Alice, hiding in a cottage just outside London with a few other survivors. They let a terrified young boy into the cottage with them, only to find out that the ‘Infected’ (the zombies) have followed the boy straight to them. The Infected chase Don, Alice and the young boy upstairs. Don escapes out of a window, ignoring Alice’s desperate cries for help. Don escapes in a boat, shredding the zombies with the motor.

A later scene shows Don reunited with his children (Tammy and Andy). He tells them that he saw their mother attacked and killed by the Infected, and does not tell them the truth; that he left her to die and saved himself.
That night, Andy has a nightmare about forgetting his mother. The older sister, Tammy, takes Andy back to their old house, despite it being outside the safe zone, to get a photo of her. I actually found this scene incredibly sweet; the connection between the two of them comes across well, and the fact she is willing to risk so much for her little brother is touching. Back at the house, Andy finds his mother, semi-conscious in their attic. Soldiers then arrive at the house, having followed Andy and Tammy, and take all three of them back to the safe zone.
Their mother is tested, and is found to be a carrier of the virus, yet doesn’t show the rage that the Infected usually show. The doctor, Scarlet, believes Alice could possibly be the key to a cure or a vaccine, and tells the soldiers not to shoot her, despite how infectious she is. However, Don sneaks into the room she is being held in, and begs her to forgive him. They kiss, but the virus in her saliva infects Don, who acts just as the other infected people do, and kills her instantly. He then escapes, killing and infecting people all round the building.
After this, it’s mainly just fighting. Scarlet, the doctor, recognises Tammy and Andy as Alice’s children, and thinks they could now be the key to a cure, so tries to protect them at all costs. The soldiers are ordered to ‘abandon selective targeting’ and just shoot everyone since they cannot tell the difference between those who are infected and those who are not. The children, Scarlet, and a soldier named Doyle all escape, but Andy is later attacked by his own father, and becomes a carrier of the virus like his mother. The film ends with the words ‘twenty-eight days later’ on the screen, and a French voice on the radio asking for help. A group of the Infected are shown running through a tunnel, and as they emerge, it shows a view of the Eiffel tower. The virus has spread.

The film is all very dark; some of the scenes are hard to follow, as the lighting is very low and the camera shots are shaky. I don’t think the film is particularly ‘scary’, and the fake blood is massively over-used. Maybe I just think this because horror films aren’t really my thing; but I really wasn’t overly impressed with this film.

A Tale Of Two Sisters (Kim, Jee-Woon, 2003)

Recently in class we have been studying a short clip from ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’ (Kim, Jee-Woon, 2003), looking at the camerawork and sound design.

The scene in this particular clip starts at 06:00.

Camerawork:

• The scene starts with an establishing shot; this is a favourite with directors, as it helps to contextualise and set the scene. This shot shows us who and what is in the scene, as well as where it is taking place. It focuses on a woman sat at a dining table as a man leaves the room. The shot is quite long, focusing on the stillness of the room, and as the man leaves the room, highlighting the woman’s loneliness and consequent fear.
• The next shot is a mid-shot, with the camera positioned just under the table, which then obscures the half the shot. This means the main focus is the woman sat at the table, and it seems to imply that something is watching her.
• She slowly turns her head to look at the sink. The director then uses an over-the-shoulder shot, so the audience can see what the woman is seeing, and also her reaction to it. It puts the focus on the sink, while still showing the actions of the woman. Her body language is showing how scared she is, so the director focuses on her to make the audience feel scared too. The audience will instinctively interpret her behaviour as fear and thus feel fear themselves.
• Another mid-shot focuses on the woman’s face; the actress successfully puts across a look of uncertainty, unease and fear, and the shot of her facial expression so clearly showing her emotions helps the audience to empathise with her. The camera moves with her during this shot. The director wanted to use as few different shots as possible as a lot of editing can make a film feel less ‘real’.
• There is then another establishing shot of the sink, putting the focus on the possible thing inside the cupboard. The actress moves into the shot to save them from another edit. This is followed by a reaction shot, used again to help the audience empathise.
• The next shot is filmed presumably as a point of view shot, from the point of view of the monster under the sink. This is another long shot, which creates questions about what could be under the sink, while also focusing once again on the woman’s emotions. As the woman moves out of the shot, a girl can be seen in the background for a short amount of time.
• This is followed by yet another reaction shot. In the same shot, the camera then zooms into the woman’s face, again highlighting her fear.
• This shot is immediately followed by another establishing shot, which shows an empty room. The girl who was sat at the table has now gone. Establishing shots are useful when used at regular intervals within a film as it contextualises the scene for the audience (for example, showing the audience that the girl is no longer there).
• After another quick establishing shot of the woman crouching on the floor, and another reaction shot, the camera focuses on the floor. This is another establishing shot, as it is showing a hair clip which was not there before.
• The next shot is a reaction shot, where the camera moves down to focus on the floor and the hair clip. The woman slowly goes to pick it up… she gets it, and just as the audience begin to relax, a hand reaches out and grabs her wrist. The hand is shown for less than a second.
• She screams, and there are lots of quick edits, showing her reaction and her dropping the hair clip on the floor. These quick edits show the woman’s panic. A and-held camera shot then shows her moving away from the sink. As she scrambles away, the camera also moves back. She then turns round and sees the girl who was sat at the dinner table earlier on. The camera zooms in to just her eyes in a close-up shot, which then fades into the next scene.

Sound Design:

• The whole scene is unnaturally quiet; this hightens sounds such as jagged breathing and the creak of the cupboard door. The silence means a loud noise is more likely to make the audience jump and it will stand out much more.
• The sound of her exaggerated panicked breathing makes the audience empathise with her, evoking feelings of fear.
• As the woman turns to look at the dining table, the sound of a child crying can be heard. This is used to elicit natural feelings within the audience; humans are tuned to react to the sound of a child in distress.
• This is followed by a loud, unnatural sound, like white noise. This is an uncomfortable sound which gets louder and louder until it stops suddenly. This leaves the audience with the feeling of discomfort.
• The following shots are mainly silent, other than the woman’s breathing. This is all leading up to the sudden ‘jump’, when a hand reaches out and grabs the woman with a quick, sharp noise. The loud, sudden noise coming out of the silence makes the audience jump.
• She screams, which is another trick to make the audience empathise with her; whenever they can sense her fear, they feel it too.
• As she looks up at the ghost girl, the sound of thunder can be heard. Many authors and directors use the weather as a way of foreshadowing something bad; Thomas Hardy, for example, uses pathetic fallacy to imply something bad, and most horror films are set in the dark, or in a thunderstorm.

Both diegetic and non-diegetic sound is used in the scene. Diegetic sound is sound which purports to come from the world of the film, such as the woman’s heavy breathing and the sound of the cupboard. Non-diegetic sound is sound added in post-production to have an effect on the audience, like the sound heard when the hand grabs the woman’s wrist, and the white noise.