Film Studies

During the sequence from ‘Prisoners’, the film uses low-key lighting and camera angles to build tension within the scene and with the audience. The colour palette of each scene was chosen carefully in order to invoke certain connotations that convey meaning to the viewer and help them to gain a better understanding about what is happening within the film and the intended tone of every location and situation. At the beginning of the sequence, we are shown a shot of a car parked outside a brightly lit restaurant at night in heavy rain. Immediately, this establishes the tone and setting of the scene and begins to suggest that mystery and deception are at play through the use of pathetic fallacy. The use of combination lighting, the contrast between the bright interior of the restaurant and the darkness of the outside at night, suggest that good versus evil is a main theme of the film, also inferring that the empty restaurant provides a brief refuge from the evil outside. After t...

Guillermo del Toro uses a range of horror conventions in order to make the audience feel uncomfortable and frightened throughout the sequence. The first shot we see is a mid shot of the character as she is startled awake in the middle of the night, the director uses low-key lighting to show that it is night and add a sense of uneasiness as we are unable to see her surroundings clearly, therefore we are unsure of whether the character is in danger or not. As the character leaves her room to investigate the cause of her dog's barking, a mid tracking shot is used from behind the character to show the audience what she is seeing without having to use a perspective shot and interrupt the flow of the scene. By doing this, the viewer is unable to see a large portion of the area as our view is blocked by the girl, giving the impression that something could jump out from outside the view we have been given as well as building suspense and paranoia. Here, the audience is shown the shado...

Annihilation is a 2018 sci-fi horror film that was directed by Alex Garland, the director of Ex-Machina. As an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s ‘Southern Reach’ trilogy, the film follows biologist Lena, who is played by Natalie Portman, as she signs up for a dangerous and secretive government expedition into a mysterious area called ‘The Shimmer’. One of the reasons why I have chosen this film to be my favourite of 2018 so far is due to its unique approach to the sci-fi genre. The film introduces a surreal and dreamlike world to the audience that is as beautiful as it is horrifying; strange and scientifically impossible mutations are shown on both the flora and fauna as the expedition team journey deeper into the forests inside The Shimmer: crocodiles with multiple rows of teeth like a shark, deer with flowers growing from their antlers, and most notably a horribly mutated bear that mimics the screams of people that it has killed to lure the team closer. All of which are created usi...