Thriller Opening - Analysis Of Tropes

In preparation for our opening, we looked at two different thrillers to address the tropes commonly featured. For 10 Cloverfield Lane by Dan Trachtenberg, the thriller that later evolves into a sci-fi film, the film opens with the common trope of the shaky cam following of our protagonist around a room. Through visuals, no dialogue, we have the scenario of our protagonist explained; she is leaving her fiancee and she is packing her belongings. We get this through her rapid grabbing of her belongings and her hurried packing, the restlessness of the camera entails. And the final panning shot reveals the left wedding ring and the note. This visual shorthand shows us very quickly the events that lead to this, telling us the backstory without forced exposition. As we follow her in her car we reach the second trope, "The Winding Road To Nowhere". This has been seen in such famous thrillers and horror films as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, The Cohen Brother's Fargo and more. We follow her in her car across a bridge, into the country, further and further away from civilisation. The isolation of her in her car, alone in the middle of nowhere is a scary.

In Room (2015) by Lenny Abrahamson, they create tension via several conventional and non-conventional ways. For example, the editing involves very quick insertion of titles so quick that they come across as disorienting, unclear, fragmented, white on black. It adds to the overall affect of the disjointed, abruptness of each shot. In terms of sound, the dull tone and the breathing over the short clips of the room add to the quick paced world building. It's only until the smooth, long take of the reveal of Room and the protagonist's voice over that the soft piano music begins. If the conventional beginning of the film had not happened, we wouldn't think this film was in any way a thriller, based on the shot of the main character and his mother and the music choice they made. The diegetic sound in the beginning, the breathing, sighing and moaning, add to the unknowing and creepy vibe of the scene, the mother's voice telling him to go back to sleep is unnerving if you haven't seen the film and you don't know what happens. Then when the voice-over begins, the sudden disconnect of diegesis , the echoey, unreal quality of his voice make it suddenly so much more calm. The shots in the beginning are obscured visuals, you can't make everything out. The extreme close-ups on mundane, small things keep it in such tight focus that you don't fully comprehend the situation. The camera action, the pull of focus, the shaky cam, the raked angles, the intensely tight shots give sense of claustrophobia. The misleading opening transitioning to the family-drama style situation of our main characters frames it as way of life, showing it as a normality and routine while also keeping an otherness to the scene that keeps you uneasy and unsure.