Mise en scene has a major part in this film opening because it includes the knife as the prop, the clown costume worn by the little brother referred to as Michael, the setting being held in the house, mostly the living room and/or bedroom, including the different lighting in each room.
The establishing shot is a long shot of a house in the dark. Low lighting is used to create shadows, a key convention of horror films. This makes the audience look around in suspense expecting to find things jumping out from the shadows keeping them constantly on the edge of their seats.
The music in this opening sequence is introduced by absolute silence; this builds tension and gets the audience ready for something scary, stereotypical of a horror film. A high-pitched sound follows and shocks the audience as there is no action happening in the scene. The film is now toying with the audience as there hasn't been any death but with this sharp sound affect we are already on the edge of our seat. This is the opposite of creating a false sense of security and makes the audience anticipate the scary events but does not know when to expect them and is therefore are constantly in distress. After this we then begin to engage in the track, for a horror movie the music is very loud and obvious, like the antagonist themselves, they don't sneak around, they don't attempt to hide. The music was very repetitive; once it started there were no pauses whatsoever. Throughout the build-up, the only thing that would alter would be the pace and pitch of the music, also with the constant outbursts of high-pitched sound effects, making sure the audience are still fully engaged. The music seems to synchronise with the scene as each step the antagonist takes to his victim becomes a key lower to the previous, connoting detach and foreshadowing the victims death.
The sequence uses only two shots throughout the film opening. The first shot is a POV hand held continuous shot. It shows the perspective of the antagonist/main character of the movie. This creates suspense as the character is not immediately established as the antagonist and as the character reaches for the knife the audience instantly feels a sense of unease and fear. The second shot in the sequence is a mid-shot of the little boy, this makes the audience feel shock s a small boy just killed his sister and this is unexpected. This is no typical horror genre convention as typically if the victims are seen from the killers point of view the identity of the killer is not revealed until a lot later in the film or not at all. This suggests to the audience that not only is the boy our antagonist but also our main character and throughout the movie many victims will find the same fate as his sister.
The POV shot is eventually develops so that we are seeing the shot through the eyes of the killers mask. Due to this, we can't really see what is going on, which sets the audience on the edge and gives and eerie feeling. This use of off screen space makes the audience feel unease as they do not know where to speculate, making the experience of watching the film more active and therefore scarier.
The victim is revealed as a naked young woman. The fact that she is a woman is very typical of the horror genre; the women are commonly portrayed as being weak and vulnerable. Her nudity could also be a symbol for her vulnerability and to show how exposed she is to the killer.
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