Poltergeist (2015) - Opening Scene Analysis

- Analysis -

The opening scene starts off with dramatic movements of pixels, along with the sound of monster like noises, and uneasiness, this is then followed with a gradual development of the non-diegetic sound of intensifying thriller like sounds. This then sets the genre of the movie.

As this increases, we immediately associate this with a horror genre. But this then transitions into the fading out of the music and we are shown what the pixels actually were; a graphic zombie, in which was a character on a game we see the young boy playing.
The non-diegetic sounds of the zombies and dark music cut off as the boys headphones are pulled off of him. This could be interpreted as this is all just in his head. This transistions into the introduction of the introduction to the family of characters. This changes the audiences assumption as we associate families with laugh-out-loud's or kid classics. As the young boy begins to fight with his mum, we pick up the attitude of the rest of the family, such as maturity of the youngest who claims that her brothers puke from last time was "smelly", this is when we are shown the eldest, who is shown to be the rebellious teen who hates spending time with her family, this is inferred through her close up
facial expression, and mis-en-scene. We also see this through the fact she calls her brother "dumbass" and rolls her eyes. We are introduced to the dialogue of this scene that shows us that they are new to the neighborhood and are moving into a new house, this is a horror cliche as we think of new house, old ghosts, when it comes to this. The kids are shown to wear normal casual, this suggests that they are a regular suburban family, who are going to regret the decision of ever moving from their ghost deprived old house.
The last shot shown is a mid shot of the family in their car as they have missed their destination on the GPS, their facial expressions drop from utter confusion but this then follows to smiles as the youngest raises her arms and shouts "wee" as they make a sudden turning, we hear in the background an gradual eerie non-diegetic sound of bells and string instruments, these set of sounds infer the tension and thriller to this film.