The creation of fear

This piece of research was conducted by Sally

A vital factor that needs to be considered when Laurel and I start planning our film opening is how we are going to create the fear which we want the audience to experience. The purpose of Thriller films is to be able to create a fear from the audience, so it is important for us to have an idea of how we are going to create this. In order to help us, I am going to make an analysis of how the film ‘What Lies Beneath’ (Directed by Robert Zemeckis) creates fear throughout the film.

The most popular technique used to cause fear within the film is to make everyday situations come across scary.

One way in which they do it is through making a dramatic music change, e.g. from a gentle, violin-created sound to some quite dark music, particularly at the beginning where Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, Claire Spencer, is going through photographs from the past. The change into dark music represents a dark time which could help create a fear in the plot. In this particular part of the scene, Claire is looking back at pictures of herself when the music changes, which instantly suggests to the audience that she is to be a victim of something.

Claire Spencer is instantly introduced as quite a vulnerable character. One of the main focuses within this film is Claire and her vulnerability. This is emphasised by a constant sense of dark and suspenseful music in the background of a number of different scenes. An example of this is when Claire finds a spot of blood on the neighbours’ shoe. In comparison to a film with of different genre, such as a comedy, the character could presume that this blood on a shoe is a result of some sort of comic accident. However, with the dark, suspenseful music in the background shows Claire’s instant suggestion is something to do with purpose impairment of a character, which is a conventional issue raised in both horror and thriller films.

You also have this constant typical dark setting, e.g. the majority of night’s its thundering, lighting, heavily raining etc. The lighting in particular helps to create the fear in this film. At the beginning of the film, Claire suspects her neighbour, Warren, has murdered his wife and refers to spying on him through her bedroom window to prove this idea. In one particular scene, she see’s Warren putting something into his trunk to drive away. However, due to the flash of the lighting, it is not clear to see weather it is in fact his wife’s body, or some other object.

You also have scenes (for example) where the door is opening itself as Claire is walking towards it. This shows a sense of comparison, as other characters such as her husband are getting this sense that Claire is becoming somewhat delusional as the allegations she made of Warren killing his wife are proved to be false.

You also have times where a sense of realism is emphasised and so therefore the thriller is suggested to have a sense of realism. An example of this is when Claire’s dog is growling and barking at the water, and both Claire and us as an audience can see a slight view of what seems to be a woman in the water. Whilst trying to work out weather in fact she can see a woman in the water or not, non-diegetic music in the background helps to cause tension, which is broken by the diegetic sound of the telephone. This helps create not just to create a sense of realism, but also a ‘jumpy’ effect to the audience.

There are also times in the film where Claire’s breathing gets heavier. Although it’s only a small element and effect, it helps emphasise the characters fright, which is then reflective on the audience.

In conclusion, film directors do not just need to show the attacker to create fear to the audience. They can use different techniques (as listed above) to create the fear even when the attacker isn’t actually attacking. E.g. in this case, Robert Zemeckis is able to create fear from the audience even before the finding out of the ghost, Madeline Fox, by using simple techniques such as just making everyday situations seem scary by tense music, muse-en-scene etc.